THE  FUTURE  LIFE 

IN  THE,  LIGHT  OF 

MODERN  INQUIRY 

SAMUEL    MCCO'MB- 


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THE  FUTURE  LIFE  IN  THE  LIGHT 
OF  MODERN  INQUIRY 


BOOKS  BY  THE  SAME  AUTHOR 

CHRISTIANITY  AND  THE  MODERN  MIND 
FAITH,  THE  GREATEST  POWER  IN  THE  WORLD 

A    BOOK    OF    PRAYERS    FOR   PERSONAL  AND 
PUBLIC  USE 

THE  NEW  LIFE 
GOD'S  MEANING  OF  LIFE 
^,4    f\   PRAYER  ;  WHAT  IT  IS  AND  WHAT  IT  DOBS 

r.  pr/ 


PRAYERS  FOR  TO-DAY,   WITH  A  SERIES   OF 
MEDITATIONS  FROM  MODERN  WRITERS' 


} 

THE  FUTURE  LIFE 
IN  THE  LIGHT  OF 
MODERN  INQUIRY 


BY 
REV.  SAMUEL  McCOMB 

Co-author  of  "  Religion  and  Medicine" 
Author  of  "  Prayers  for  To-day,"  etc. 


NEW  YORK 

DODD,  MEAD  AND  COMPANY 
1919 


95T55 


COPTRiaHT,   1919,    BT 

DODD,  MEAD  AND  COMPANY,  INC. 


8fe  fiuton  &  Soften   Companp 

BOOK      MANUFACTURERS 
MAHWAY  NEW     JERSEY 


To 

MY  MOTHER 
In  Grateful  Memory  and  Sacred  Eo-pe 


PREFATORY  NOTE 

THE  author  offers  no  apology  for  the  publica- 
tion of  this  book.    The  subject  is  indeed  well- 
worn,  and  there  is  much  plausibility  in  the 
aphorism  that  "  nothing  new  has  been  said  for 
immortality    since    Plato,    and    nothing    new 
against  it  since  Epicurus. "   Yet  this  is  not  to  be 
taken  too  literally.    Our  newer  knowledge  has 
deprived  many  ancient  arguments  of  the  pres- 
tige which  they  once  enjoyed,  and  has,  at  the 
[^    same  time,  opened  up  fresh  paths  of  reflection 
^    and  suggested  the  lines  along  which  the  thoughts 
of  coming  generations  are  likely  to  run.    More- 
over, the  world  in  our  day  is  shaking  and  the 
hearts  of  men  are  failing  them  for  fear.    Every- 
T"  one  is  bound  to  say  what  he  can  on  behalf  of  a 
&    belief  that  cannot  but  steady  and  reassure  the 
^    human  soul  amid  the  perils  that  now  beset  it. 
3        Cordial  thanks  are  due  and  are  hereby  ten- 
dered to  Dr.  Walter  F.  Prince  for  his  gener- 
osity in  preparing  the  materials  of  Chapter  IX, 
especially  for  his  clear  outline  of  the  Fisher 
case,  a  fuller  exposition  of  which  he  will  set 
forth  in  a  volume  now  being  made  ready  for  the 

vii 


viii  PREFATORY  NOTE 

press.  Grateful  acknowledgment  must  also  be 
made  of  Rev.  Dr.  Elwood  Worcester's  kindness 
in  reading  a  portion  of  the  proofs  and  in  making 
several  valuable  suggestions.  Chapter  IV  has 
already  appeared  as  an  article  in  the  Contempo- 
rary Review  for  June,  1919,  and  in  the  Ameri- 
can Journal  of  Psychical  Research  for  the  same 
month. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  V  PAGE 

I.    WHAT  is  IMMORTALITY!  ...        1 
II.    IMMORTALITY  AND  THE  MODERN  MAN      13 

III.  THE  DESIRE  FOR  IMMORTALITY  V   .       39 

IV.  HINDRANCES  TO  BELIEF  IN  IMMOR- 

TALITY    .       .  f       .       55 

V.    THE  MORAL  ARGUMENT    .  v/  .       ,      83 

VI.    JESUS    CHRIST    AND   THE    FUTURE 

LIFE         ...       .       .       .100 

VII.    DID  JESUS  RISE  FROM  THE  DEAD?  .     120 

VIII.    THE  ARGUMENT  FROM  PSYCHICAL 

RESEARCH        .....     140 

IX.    SPECIMENS  OF  THE  EVIDENCE  SUP-  'f 

PLIED  BY  PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  .     166 

X.    THE  PRACTICAL  VALUE  OF  BELIEF  ft 
IN  IMMORTALITY  218 


THE  FUTUEE  LIFE  IN  THE  LIGHT 
OF  MODERN  INQUIRY 


THE  FUTURE  LIFE  IN  THE  LIGHT 
OF  MODERN   INQUIRY 

CHAPTER  I 

WHAT   IS   IMMORTALITY? 

IT  is  important  at  the  outset  to  make  clear  the 
sense  in  which  our  terms  are  used.  The 
pantheist,  the  positivist,  and  even  the  agnostic 
assert  immortality  no  less  fervently  than  the 
orthodox  Christian,  but  it  will  be  admitted  that 
a  conception  so  loose  and  featureless  can  hardly 
admit  of  argument.  It  is  unfortunate  that  the 
word  "  immortality "  has  been  used  with  such 
ambiguity  that  the  problem  has  been  obscured 
and  a  subject  difficult  enough  in  itself  has  been 
rendered  still  less  amenable  to  thought. 

A  widespread  popular  usage  interprets  im- 
mortality as  in  a  strict  sense  the  life  everlasting. 
But  whether  the  soul  will  last  forever  is  and 
must  remain  always  a  question  for  faith.  Here 
knowledge  and  science  are  dumb.  We  know  not 
what  vicissitudes  may  be  in  store  for  the  soul  in 

1 


2  THE  FUTURE  LIFE 

the  measureless  reaches  of  infinite  time.  The 
survival  of  physical  death  might  well  raise  the 
presumption  or  the  hope  that  a  being  capable 
of  surmounting  such  a  barrier  would  also  prove 
equal  to  any  changes  that  may  befall  in  the  life 
to  come.  But  beyond  this  we  cannot  go. 

By  immortality  is  here  meant  the  survival  of 
bodily  death  of  that  part  of  man  which  is  called, 
variously,  mind,  soul,  self,  spirit,  individuality, 
personality,  or  whatever  other  term  may  be 
held  to  be  synonymous  with  these.  The  time- 
honoured  word  "soul"  is  as  good  as  any  other 
— if  only  we  are  careful  to  make  sure  of  what 
we  mean  by  it.  Modern  men  cannot  away  with 
the  notion  that  the  "soul"  is  a  mysterious  en- 
tity, distinct  from,  and,  so  to  say,  standing  over 
against  thoughts,  volitions,  and  feelings,  itself 
knowing  no  change,  while  these,  like  the  ever- 
shifting  pictures  of  a  magic-lantern,  come  and 
go  and  never  continue  in  one  stay.  The  more 
we  try  to  grasp  this  entity,  the  more  it  eludes 
us.  It  is  a  metaphysical  abstraction  for  which 
we  can  find  no  meaning  or  purpose :  and  so  the 
psychologist  refuses  to  recognize  it  and  is  con- 
tent to  leave  it  to  the  preacher  and  the  scholastic 
philosopher.  Today  what  we  mean  by  the 
"soul"  is  simply  a  limited  stream  of  thoughts, 
volitions,  and  feelings,  partly  conscious,  partly 


WHAT  IS  IMMORTALITY!  3 

subconscious,  yet  also  a  stream  able  to  recall 
its  past  states,  and  to  recognize  these  states 
as  its  own.  This  finite  unitary  consciousness 
is  connected  with  a  body  in  a  relationship  in- 
describably intimate.  But  both  the  psychical 
and  physical  elements  imply  a  greater  reality 
to  which  they  belong  and  out  of  which  they 
have  emerged.  If  any  reader  feels  that  this 
view  makes  the  soul  too  much  of  a  mere  phe- 
nomenon, perhaps  the  definition  of  a  well- 
known  man  of  science  will  prove  more  helpful : 
"The  soul  is  that  controlling  and  guiding  prin- 
ciple which  is  responsible  for  our  personal  ex- 
pression and  for  the  construction  of  the  body 
under  the  restrictions  of  physical  condition 
and  ancestry.  In  its  higher  development  it 
includes  also  feeling  and  intelligence  and  will 
and  is  the  storehouse  of  mental  experience. 
The  body  is  its  instrument  or  organ,  enabling 
it  to  conceive  and  to  convey  physical  impres- 
sions, and  to  affect  and  be  affected  by  matter 
and  energy.  When  the  body  is  destroyed,  there- 
fore, the  soul  disappears  from  physical  ken; 
when  the  body  is  impaired,  its  function  is  inter- 
fered with  and  the  soul's  physical  reaction  be- 
comes feeble  and  unsatisfactory.  Thus  has 
arisen  the  popular  misconception  that  the  soul 
of  a  slain  person  or  of  a  cripple  or  paralytic, 


4  THE  FUTURE  LIFE 

has  been  destroyed  or  damaged;  whereas  only 
its  instrument  of  manifestation  need  have 
been  affected.  The  kind  of  evils  which  really 
assault  and  hurt  the  soul  belong  to  a  different 
category."  * 

It  really  does  not  matter,  so  far  as  the  prob- 
lem of  immortality  is  concerned,  how  we  define 
the  soul,  if  only  we  refuse  to  reduce  it  to  a  func- 
tion or  a  by-product  of  brain-processes.  Our 
idea  of  the  nature  of  the  future  life  will  in- 
deed be  affected  by  our  conception  of  the 
spiritual  content  of  the  soul,  but  the  fact 
of  the  future  life  is  independent  of  all  such 
theories. 

Now,  the  question  in  which  we  are  interested 
today  is  not,  Is  the  soul  endlessly  existent?  but. 
Does  the  soul  survive  the  experience  of  death 
and  preserve  a  sense  of  its  identity?  If  f.nd 
when  we  are  able  to  answer  this  question  ir,  the 
affirmative,  we  may  go  on  to  enquire  as  tj  the 
nature  and  we  may  even  speculate  as  !o  the 
conditions  of  the  life  beyond.  The  poinc  to  be 
emphasized  just  now  is  that  immortality  means 
the  individual's  survival  of  death,  the  per- 
sistence of  personal  consciousness  in  spite  of 
physical  dissolution. 

Many  who  are  unable  to  believe  in  this  con- 

*Sir  Oliver  Lodge:  Man  and  the  Universe,  pp.  165,  166. 


WHAT  IS  IMMORTALITY!  5 

quest  over  death,  cannot  bear  the  thought  that 
all  the  garnered  treasures  of  human  character 
are  thrown  to  the  dust  heap,  and  hold  that  the 
moral  and  spiritual  values  attributed  to  the  sur- 
vival of  personality  can  be  retained  and  con- 
verted into  an  ethical  inspiration  by  the  posthu- 
mous working  of  our  influence  in  the  lives  and 
characters  of  unborn  generations.  The  solidar- 
ity of  the  race  is  indeed  a  truth  which  science 
has  especially  graven  on  the  minds  of  modern 
men.  No  man  stands  alone.  No  life  is  lived  unto 
itself  alone.  We  are  one  with  our  environment. 
Our  deepest  convictions  are  shaped  in  part  at 
least  by  men  and  women  who  have  long  since 
mouldered  in  their  graves.  And  we,  in  turn,  by 
our  words  and  deeds,  affect  our  contemporaries 
and  shall  affect  those  who  come  after  us,  for 
good  or  ill,  for  happiness  or  misery.  It  is,  in- 
deed, a  solemn  thought  that  every  act  we  do 
leaves  its  mark  upon  the  texture  of  our  spiritual 
nature,  and  at  the  same  time  goes  forth  to 
work  out  its  appointed  consequences  in  the  life 
of  humanity.  Our  little  lives  like  rivulets  rush 
to  swell  the  vast  tide  of  the  race's  common 
life,  each  making  its  contribution  to  the  mighty 
whole.  All  this  is  deeply,  if  tritely,  true.  In 
the  oft-quoted  lines  of  George  Eliot,  it  has  found 
noble  expression: 


6  THE  FUTURE  LIFE 

"Oh  may  I  join  the  choir  invisible 
Of  those  immortal  dead  who  live  again 
In  minds  made  better  by  their  presence :  live 
In  pulses  stirred  to  generosity, 
In  deeds  of  daring  rectitude,  in  scorn 
For  miserable  aims  that  end  with  self, 
In  thoughts  sublime  that  pierce  the  night  like  stars 
And  with  their  mild  persistence  urge  man 's  search 
To  vaster  issues." 

But  the  very  efforts  of  poet  and  philosopher 
to  array  in  alluring  colours  the  hope  of  post- 
humous influence  in  the  life  of  posterity  as  a 
substitute  for  personal  continuance  after  death, 
are  themselves  proofs  of  the  deep-seated  long- 
ing which  is  denied.  And  the  more  we  examine 
the  proposed  exchange  the  more  we  see  that  it 
is  a  case  of  giving  us  a  stone  when  we  ask  for 
bread.  For  the  assumption  is  that  the  history 
of  the  race  is  one  of  continuous  and  unmodified 
progress.  But  as  Professor  Eoyce  has  pointed 
out,  temporal  progress  is  only  one  aspect  of  the 
temporal  order.  "For  in  Nature,  too,  nothing 
recurs.  The  broken  china  will  not  mend.  The 
withered  flowers  bloom  no  more.  The  sun  parts 
forever  with  its  heat.  Tidal  friction  irrevocably 
retards  tbe  revolution  of  the  earth."  And 
again : * '  Remember  we  have  lost,  beyond  earthly 
recall,  tbe  Greeks,  and  tbe  constructive  genius 


WHAT  IS  IMMORTALITY!  7 

of  a  Shakespeare  or  of  a  Goethe ;  and  these  are, 
indeed,  for  us  mortals,  simply  irreparable  loss." 
Thus  progress  and  decay,  evolution  and  disinte- 
gration, are  alike  laws  that  govern  the  history 
of  the  individual  and  the  race.  Not  only  so,  but 
if  any  dictum  of  science  is  to  be  relied  on,  it  is 
that  which  prophesies  that  "our  racial  destiny 
is  to  strive  and  to  starve  to  death  in  ever- 
deepening  gloom."  In  other  words,  we  are 
asked  to  devote  our  moral  energies  with  whole- 
souled  ardour  to  the  work  of  helping  a  race 
which  is  as  evanescent  as  a  colony  of  ants, 
and  of  confining  all  our  interests  to  a  world 
which  will  one  day  roll  on  in  its  orbit  as 
though  men  and  ants  had  never  been.  Such 
a  theory  of  immortality  makes  the  sacrifice  of 
the  individual  irrational  and  unjustifiable.  The 
heroic  millions  who  in  the  Great  War  have 
laid  down  their  lives  for  freedom — what  of 
them?  Do  you  say  that  they  have  contributed 
their  share  to  the  progress  of  the  world,  that 
the  good  cause  will  triumph  because  of  their 
sacrifice  and  that  this  is  their  reward?  What 
matters  it  that  they  lapse  into  nothingness,  if 
only  the  ultimate  victory  of  right  be  achieved? 
The  answer  is,  that  our  moral  consciousness 
protests  against  such  a  decree.  We  ask  and 
cannot  but  ask  that  somewhere  and  some  time 


8  THE  FUTURE  LIFE 

these  brave  spirits  shall  witness  and  share  in 
the  triumph  of  that  righteousness  of  which 
they  were  the  organs  and  instruments.  And 
here  we  return  to  the  ever-present  question 
of  the  worth  of  personality.  Man,  says  Kant, 
is  an  end  in  himself  and  cannot  be  used  as  a 
means  to  an  end.  But  on  the  theory  we  are 
controverting,  man  is  of  no  intrinsic  account. 
All  life,  the  living  individuals  of  today,  and  of 
the  farthest  bounds  of  time,  must  appear,  in  this 
view,  utterly  contemptible.  Why  should  I  sacri- 
fice myself  for  others,  if  the  others  are,  like 
myself,  the  children  of  a  fleeting  day,  doomed 
to  the  same  pitiful  fate?  It  is  no  reproach  to 
human  nature  to  say  that  few  will  be  found  to 
rejoice  in  such  a  quixotic  enterprise.  The  "  im- 
mortal dead"  were  once  indeed  unique  centres 
of  experience,  but  they  are  now  annihilated  and 
while  some  of  their  thoughts  may  persist,  they 
do  not  ''live  again,"  no  more  than  the  stone 
lives  again  (to  borrow  Huxley's  illustration)  in 
the  wavelets  which  it  makes  when  flung  into  the 
sea. 

More  recently,  poetic  thought  has  sought  to 
find  a  substitute  for  personal  continuance  after 
death  in  a  mystic  absorption  in  the  totality  of 
being,  or  God.  William  Watson  conceives  the 
great  divine  event  awaiting  humanity  to  be  uni- 


WHAT  IS  IMMORTALITY?  9 

versal  euthanasia — a  reabsorption  in  the  Uni- 
versal Spirit. 

"When  from  this  threshold  of  being,  these  steps  of 

the  Present,  this  precinct, 

Into  the  matrix  of  life,  darkly,  divinely  resumed, 
Man  and  his  littleness  perish,  erased  like  an  error 

and  cancelled, 
Man  and  his  greatness,  lost  in  the    greatness  of 

God."1 

Now,  wherein  consists  man's  real  greatness? 
Is  it  not  in  the  fact  that  be  is  the  creator  of 
character,  a  unique  self-conscious  centre  of  feel- 
ing and  will?  This  is  the  inner  core  of  man's 
essence.  It  is  this  that  differentiates  him  from 
the  brute  creation  and  constitutes  him  a  person. 
For  man  so  conceived  to  disappear  or  be  lost 
"in  the  greatness  of  God"  would  mean  a  trag- 
edy, obscuring  in  gloom  the  divine  character 
and  the  spiritual  worth  of  man.  What  kind 
of  a  God  must  we  suppose  Him  to  be  Who  hav- 
ing called  into  being  a  creature  sucb  as  man, 
endowed  with  individuality  and  all  the  unreal- 
ized possibilities  of  a  divine  nobleness,  should 
waste  all  this  spiritual  treasure,  the  grandest 
product  of  creative  energy,  by  quenching  the 
light  of  conscious  reason  and  affection  in  "the 

1  Hymn  to  the  Sea. 


10  THE  FUTURE  LIFE 

vast  darkness  of  the  Godhead"!  Francis 
Thompson's  intuition  pierces  the  sophism  with 
unerring  insight : 

"Ah!  is  Thy  love  indeed 
A  weed,  albeit  an  amaranthine  weed 
Suffering  no  flowers,  except  its  own  to  mount?*' 

Certainly  the  interests  of  ethics  and  religion 
are  bound  up  with  the  denial  of  any  renuncia- 
tion of  man's  true  selfhood.  His  annihilation 
means  a  loss  to  the  moral  order,  for  the  good 
realized  in  character  ceases  to  be ;  it  means  also 
a  loss  to  God,  for  a  being  whom  He  has  sum- 
moned into  friendship  with  Himself  is  no  more. 
In  some  real  and  true  sense  God  needs  man, 
even  as  man  needs  God.  Every  soul  has  to  God 
the  value  of  a  realized  purpose,  an  increase  of 
goodness  in  the  universe.  But  this  conviction 
is  fatal  to  the  thought  that  a  physical  episode, 
such  as  death,  can  put  a  term  to  the  love  and 
self-giving  which  constitute  the  true  greatness 
and  glory  of  the  Divine. 

There  is  another  substitute  for  personal  con- 
tinuance after  death  which  some  modern  the- 
ologians offer  us  and  which  in  much  of  present- 
day  preaching  obscures  the  real  issue.  Per- 
sonal immortality  is  left  shadowed  with  doubt, 
but  in  order  to  make  good  this  deficiency,  strong 


WHAT  IS  IMMOKTALITYI  11 

emphasis  is  laid  on  " eternal  life."  Many  an 
unsuspecting  hearer  imagines  that  when  "  eter- 
nal life"  is  held  up  before  him  as  the  true  goal 
of  all  his  strivings,  he  is  being  exhorted  to  live  a 
life  not  limited  by  death  but  as  permanent  as  the 
life  of  God  Himself.  What  is  meant,  however, 
is  quite  irrelevant  to  the  notion  of  personal  per- 
sistence in  a  life  beyond  the  grave.  The  phrase 
is  intended  to  mark  a  quality  of  soul  attainable 
here  and  now — a  sense  of  dominion  over  the 
world,  an  experience  of  victory  over  the  troubles 
and  vexations  of  our  earthly  existence.  It  is 
a  present  ethical  and  religious  experience  and 
one  may  have  it  without  thereby  entertaining 
any  hope  for  a  life  after  death.  Bailey  in  his 
"Festus"  has  brought  out  the  thought: 

"We  live  in  deeds  not  years,  in  thoughts  not  breaths, 
In  feelings,  not  in  figures  on  a  dial. ' ' 

In  its  highest  sense  "eternal  life"  means  fellow- 
ship with  God  evidenced  in  a  life  of  brotherly 
love  and  service.  As  a  New  Testament  writer 
puts  it:  "This  is  eternal  life,  that  they  know 
Thee,  the  only  real  God,  and  He  Whom  Thou 
hast  sent."  *  "We  know  we  have  crossed  from 
death  to  life,  because  we  love  the  brotherhood; 
and  he  who  has  no  love  [for  his  brother] 

1  John  xvii,  3. 


12  THE  FUTURE  LIFE 

remains  in  death. " *  So  far,  however,  is  this 
profound  truth  from  being  incompatible  with 
the  idea  of  personal  immortality  that  it  rather 
points  beyond  itself  and  suggests  the  ultimate 
victory  of  the  soul  over  death,  the  swallowing 
up  of  all  that  threatens  man's  destiny,  in  an 
abounding  and  ever-growing  life.  We  may  well 
argue  that  if  " eternal  life"  means  the  present 
consciousness  of  God,  an  episode  in  the  history 
of  the  physical  organism  will  not  avail  to  quench 
this  consciousness  in  darkness. 

*  I.  John  iii,  14   (Moffatt's  translation). 


I 

CHAPTER  H 

IMMORTALITY   AND   THE   MODERN   MAN 

THERE  is,  perhaps,  no  more  significant  revela- 
tion of  the  spiritual  trend  of  our  age  than  the 
revived  interest  in  the  riddle  of  human  destiny. 
Even  before  the  war,  in  many  circles  where  it 
was  supposed  the  question  was  settled  for  all 
intelligent  persons  in  the  negative,  old  question- 
ings began  to  stir  afresh,  and  the  discovery  was 
made  that  the  matter  was  not  settled,  that  the 
human  spirit  was  girding  itself  for  a  fresh 
attack  on  the  ancient  problem:  If  a  man  die 
shall  he  live  again?  But,  undoubtedly,  the  war 
with  its  cruel  losses  has  stirred  in  millions  of 
hearts  with  unwonted  poignancy  the  old  crav- 
ings to  know  whether  "those  we  call  the  dead 
are  breathers  of  an  ampler  day,"  and  whether 
there  are  grounds  for  believing  that  spirit  will 
yet  flash  to  spirit  some  signal  of  mutual  recog- 
nition. Today  as  never  before  men  and  women 
are  searching  their  minds  to  discover  where 
they  really  stand  in  regard  to  this  most  vital 
and  momentous  question.  Amid  the  crash  of 
falling  kingdoms,  the  passing  away  of  those 

13 


14 

near  to  us  and  most  dear,  the  darkening 
shadows  of  social  revolution,  in  short,  the  utter 
insecurity  of  all  finite  interests,  we  ask  for  some 
enduring  reality,  some  abiding  rock  on  which 
we  can  build  the  fabric  of  our  spiritual  life. 
The  experience  of  many  soldiers  at  the  front  is 
that  also  of  many  of  their  friends  who  remained 
at  home.  Face  to  face  with  death,  either  per- 
sonally or  vicariously,  these  persons  have  dis- 
covered that  their  religious  faith  or  view  of  life 
was  a  mere  tradition  which  broke  down  under 
the  pressure  of  a  terrible  experience.  They 
have  awakened  as  from  a  pleasant  dream,  to 
discover — what  ?  A  world  full  of  doubt,  denial, 
uncertainty,  at  best  of  vague  and  elusive  hopes. 
There  are  many  persons  who  would  describe 
their  mental  state  as  "an  aspiration  sometimes 
approaching  almost  to  a  faith,  occasionally  and 
for  a  few  moments  rising  into  a  trust,  but  never 
able  to  settle  into  the  consistency  of  a  definite 
and  enduring  creed. ' ' 

But  whatever  may  be  the  situation  in  the 
world  at  large,  surely  inside  our  Christian 
Churches  this  faith  is  kept  fresh  and  living, 
and  here,  if  nowhere  else,  death  can  be  faced  in 
calmness  and  peace  in  the  assured  confidence 
that  it  marks  only  a  transition  to  a  fuller  and 
a  richer  life.  Alas !  this  is  far  from  being  the 


IMMORTALITY  AND  MODERN  MAN     15 

case,  as  any  one  with  knowledge  of  the  facts 
can  testify.  Too  often  blank  uncertainty  ending 
in  bitter  despair  unhinges  the  mind  and  throws 
the  inner  world  into  confusion.  (There  are,  of 
course,  many  exceptions,  but  these  will  be  found 
almost  wholly  confined  to  the  few  who  can  ac- 
cept the  Christian  revelation  in  childlike  faith 
or  whose  spiritual  intuitions  are  undimmed  by 
the  shadows  of  the  abstractive  intellect?)  The 
refusal  to  accept  any  truth  on  authority,  the  rise 
and  dominance  of  the  higher  criticism,  the  un- 
certain note  of  the  educated  teacher  of  religion, 
and  the  crude  phantasies  of  the  uneducated 
^evangelist — all  these  and  other  influences  in  a 
lesser  degree  are  responsible  for  the  present 
failure  of  faith  in  immortality  in  the  Christian 
world.  Indeed  it  must  be  confessed  with  pain 
that  the  most  unwavering  assurances  of  the 
immortal  hope  do  not  as  a  rule  come  from  the 
professed  champions  of  Church  and  Creed  but 
from  men  whose  main  interests  lie  elsewhere. 
Take,  for  example,  the  following  statement  of  a 
well-known  man  of  science : ' '  We  shall  certainly 
continue  to  exist,  we  shall  certainly  survive. 
Why  do  I  say  that!  I  say  it  on  definite  scien- 
tific grounds.  I  know  that  certain  friends  of 
mine  still  exist,  because  I  have  talked  with  them 
I  have  conversed  with  them  as  I  could 


16  THE  FUTURE  LIFE 

converse  through  a  telephone  with  any  one  in 
this  audience  now.  Being  men  of  cultivated 
mind  they  have  given  proofs  that  it  is  really 
they,  not  some  impersonation,  not  something 
emanating  from  myself.  They  have  given  defi- 
nite proofs.  Some  of  these  proofs  have  been 
published.  Many  more  will  have  to  be  withheld 
for  a  time,  but  will  ultimately  be  published.  I 
tell  you  with  all  the  strength  of  conviction  that  I 
can  muster  that  the  fact  is  so,  that  we  do  persist, 
that  people  still  take  an  interest  in  what  is  going 
on,  that  they  still  help  us,  that  they  know  far 
more  about  things  than  we  do,  that  they  are  able 
from  time  to  time  to  communicate.  "x  Now  wrhat 
strikes  the  reader  in  this  confession  is  not  the 
reference  to  the  spiritistic  theory  of  communi- 
cation so  much  as  the  ringing  tone  of  clear  and 
assured  conviction.  However  this  certainty  is 
gained,  it  is  simply  invaluable.  It  means  a  new 
world  for  the  man  who  has  won  it.  It  can- 
not but  bring  to  life  an  ethical  stimulus,  con- 
solation amid  discouragement  and  defeat,  a 
coherence  and  an  intelligibility  otherwise  im- 
possible. Yet  were  one  to  stand  up  in  a  Chris- 
tian pulpit  and  proclaim  a  future  life  with  a 
like  assurance,  he  would  be  listened  to  with 
polite  incredulity  on  the  part  of  very  many  and 

1  Sir  Oliver  Lodge:  Science  and  Religion,  p.  £5. 


l/swet   /?'/- 

~~~~  /I 

IMMORTALITY  AND  MODERN  MAN  17 

would  find  himself  regarded  as  St.  Paul  was 
by  the  Athenians — something  of  an  enthusiast. 
Ruskin  in  his  preface  to  "The  Crown  of  Wild 
Olive"  makes  the  strikingly  true  observation 
that  "if  you  address  any  average  modern  Eng- 
lish company  as  believing  in  an  Eternal  life,  and 
endeavour  to  draw  any  conclusions,  from  this 
assumed  belief,  as  to  their  present  business, 
they  will  forthwith  tell  you  that  what  you  say  is 
very  beautiful,  but  it  is  not  practical.  If,  on 
the  contrary,  you  frankly  address  them  as  un- 
believers in  Eternal  life,  and  try  to  draw  any 
consequences  from  that  unbelief, — they  immedi- 
ately hold  you  for  an  accursed  person,  and  shake 
off  the  dust  from  their  feet  at  you."  How  is 
this  to  be  explained?  (Why  is  it  that  the  average 
church-goer  resents  the  unqualified  affirmation 
of  a  life  beyond  the  grave?  Doubtless  to  some 
extent  he  is  influenced  consciously  or  uncon- 
sciously by  the  prevailing  habits  of  thought 
already  referred  to ;  but  there  is  another  reason. 
Strange  as  it  may  appear,  the  average  pro- 
fessor of  religion  prefers  that  the  future  life 
should  not  be  discussed  except  in  a  form  which 
.,  convention  should  dictate,  and  convention  pre- 
scribes that  this  form  be  no  more  than  a  pious 
aspiration.  Listen  to  the  startling  assertion  of 
a  distinguished  American  divine:  "A  degree  of 


18  THE  FUTURE  LIFE 

agnosticism  touching  the  future  life  is  tolerable 
to  religious  men  today,  which  would  have  been 
quite  intolerable  in  other  days.  It  is  not  an  acci- 
dent that  in  modern  sermonic  literature  the  sub- 
jects of  heaven  and  hell  bulk  far  less  largely 
than  they  once  did.^/w  the  absence  of  experi- 
mental proof  few  present-day  thinkers  are  able 
to  count  immortality  as  other  than  a  more  or 
less  well-grounded  hope.  '  '  x  The  situation  is  a 
curious  one.  It  is  difficult  to  avoid  the  conclu- 
sion that  many  good  church-going  people  are 
afraid  that  the  belief  may  turn  out  to  be  true.^) 
We  have  an  exact  parallel  in  the  widespread 
repugnance  to  the  preaching  of  that  funda- 
mental change  of  moral  and  spiritual  outlook 
which  goes  by  the  popular  name  "conversion." 
This  doctrine,  it  is  held,  is  suitable  for  the  de- 
graded or  vicious  classes,  for  men  and  women 
of  an  emotional  type,  perhaps,  who  have  been 
flagrant  sinners  or  transgressors  of  social  law, 
but  quite  inapplicable  to  law-abiding,  respect- 
able citizens,  to  the  educated  and  the  conven- 
tionally  "good."  But  now  it  was  precisely  to 
these  latter  classes  that  Christ  preached  the  doc- 
trine, and  it  was  their  aversion  to  it  that  drew 
from  Him  His  denunciation  of  Pharisee  and 

1  A.  C.  McGiffert  :   The  Rise  of  Modern  Religious  Ideas,  p. 
163. 


*•***+  -f 


i  i     •  L 


IMMORTALITY  AND  MODERN  MAN 

Sadducee.  Here,  then,  are  two  great  religious 
ideas  which  provoke  annoyance  and  resentment 
on  the  part  of  many  apparently  religious  per- 
sons, and  the  question  is  :  Why?  The  more  one 
turns  the  matter  over  in  one's  mind,  the  more 
the  conviction  grows  that  the  same  psychologi- 
cal cause  is  at  work  in  both  cases.  Many  turn 
away  from  certainty  of  a  future  life  and  from 
the  demand  which  brooks  no  denial  for  a  pro- 
found transformation  of  their  minds,  for  the 
same  reason;  acceptance  of  either  idea  would 
inevitably  lead  to  a  far-reaching  disturbance  of 
their  normal,  every-day  lives,  to  a  complete  re- 
construction of  their  moral  and  social  world. 
But  as  the  years  pass,  the  dull  weight  of  custom, 
the  inert,  mechanical,  and  automatic  force  of 
convention,  makes  such  a  reversion  of  their 
normal  existence  a  task  to  be  evaded  with  all 
the  stratagems  at  their  command.  Hence  they 
make  a  compromise.  They  will  not  deny  that 
within  limits  the  Christian  theory  of  repentance 
has  its  rights,  but  it  must  not  interfere  unduly 
with  the  claims  of  use  and  wont.  So,  too,  with 
the  idea  of  a  future  life.  That  also  must  not  be 
denied,  yet  it  must  not  be  asserted,  as  if  it 
were  a  fact  like  the  law  of  gravitation,  or  like 
any  of  the  data  of  experience,  because  if  it  were 
so  asserted  and  accepted,  they  would  be  com- 


20  THE  FUTURE  LIFE 

pelled  to  regard  themselves  and  those  about 
them  in  an  altogether  different  light.  They 
would  awake  to  the  claim  of  unsuspected  duties 
and  tasks.  They  would  see  their  every  act  to 
be  fraught  with  a  significance  unimaginably 
great.  To  escape  such  a  revolution  the  idea  of 
immortality  must  be  lessened  of  its  dynamic 
meaning,  and  its  revolutionary  power  must  be 
kept  in  check. 

But  this  method  of  dealing  with  a  great  prin- 
ciple brings  its  own  Nemesis.  When,  through 
some  painful  bereavement,  the  soul  is  awakened 
to  the  need  for  certainty,  for  some  satisfying 
conception  of  the  world  into  which  the  loved  one 
has  passed,  nothing  offers  that  can  stand  the 
scrutiny  of  the  anxious  heart,  beset,  as  it  is, 
with  a  host  of  questions  that  now  clamour  for 
an  answer.  How  intently  the  mind  strains  into 
the  darkness  and  vacancy  to  catch  a  gleam  of 
living  light!  Where  are  the  dead!  How  can 
they  exist  without  a  body?  What  is  the  mean- 
ing of  resurrection?  When  will  it  be  and  how? 
Do  the  departed  pass  to  the  judgment  of  God 
immediately  after  death,  or  do  they  wait  in  a 
disembodied  state  for  a  public  and  formal  assize 
at  the  last  day?  Do  they  inhabit  other  worlds? 
If  so,  as  these  worlds  are  constantly  perishing, 
must  not  discarnate  spirits  migrate  from  world 


IMMOKTALITY  AND  MODERN  MAN  21 

to  world?  How  are  we  to  conceive  of  the  em- 
ployments of  those  who  have  passed  over  ?  Are 
they  near  at  hand  or  remote  from  us?  Shall 
there  be  a  meeting  between  loved  ones  again 
and  mutual  recognition  or  will  not  those  who 
have  passed  over  first  have  advanced  to  higher 
planes  where  the  weakness  or  immaturity  of 
those  who  come  later  may  not  reach?  What 
kind  of  a  sphere  is  it  into  which  has  gone  that 
tender  and  loving  spirit  so  dear  to  us  on  earth? 
Will  there  be  friendly  faces  to  offer  a  welcome 
to  the  newcomer  ?  Or  is  it  an  infinite  void  where 
in  utter  loneliness  the  spirit  lives  out  its  life 
shut  up  with  the  memories  of  its  past?  And 
when  the  intellect  fails  to  create  new  perplexi- 
ties, the  imagination  conjures  up  a  myriad 
phantoms  to  terrify  and  to  confuse. 

The  lesson  such  experiences  should  teach  us 
is  to  get  face  to  face  with  this  problem  and  to 
come  to  terms  with  it.  Sooner  or  later  the  hour 
when  we  shall  be  forced  to  face  it  will  befall  us, 
and  then  we  may  be  in  no  condition  to  summon 
our  souls  to  order  and  certainly  we  shall  have 
lost  the  spiritual  benefits  of  self-discipline  and 
preparation.  What  a  pathetic  and  even  tragic 
circumstance  is  the  fact  that  around  us  are 
thousands  of  men  and  women  who  all  their  life- 
time are  subject  to  bondage  through  fear  of 

n 
i      *l!/huto*t*-  -'I*- 

£*+</• 


22  THE  FUTURE  LIFE 

death  either  for  themselves  or  for  others !  And 
yet  no  true  or  worthy  life  can  be  lived  till  fear 
is  trampled  underfoot.  We  can  do  our  work  in 
peace  and  dignity  only  when  we  can  say  with 
Victor  Hugo :  "Death  is  not  the  dreary  finish  to 
life;  it  is  its  prolongation;  my  work  is  only 
/rr'begun,  * '  or  with  Emerson :  * '  All  that  I  have  seen 

f.»      leads  me  to  trust  God  for  what  I  have  not 

Aft*   seen." 

Outside  religious  circles,  there  are  great 
varieties  of  attitude  toward  our  problem.  To 
begin  with,  there  are  the  indifferent  who  hardly 
ever  think  of  the  matter  and  who  spend  no  little 
energy  in  keeping  it  at  arm's  length.  Why 
worry,  they  say,  about  death  till  death  comes? 
One  world  at  a  time.  We  shall  know  all  about 
it  time  enough;  just  now  business  and  home, 
art  and  science,  politics  and  social  life  can  fill 
every  moment.  This  appears  to  be  a  state  of 
mind  as  unscientific  as  it  is  unnatural  and 
impermanent.  (It  is  unnatural,  for  man  is  in 
essence  a  moral  being,  that  is,  he  acts  with 
a  view  to  an  end,  to  the  accomplishment  or 
enjoyment  of  something  in  the  future.  If  man 
is  not  this,  he  is  no  better  than  the  non-rational 
animal.^  The  future  to  "a  being  qfjarge  dis- 
course, able  to  look  before  and  after,"  has  a 
significance  for  the  present,  whether  that  fu- 


IMMORTALITY  AND  MODERN  MAN  23 

ture  is  only  ten  minutes  ahead  or  ten  years 
or  a  possible  eternity.  Indeed  the  present  has 
no  meaning  except  with  a  view  to  the  future. 
Says  Pascal:  "The  immortality  of  the  soul  is 
a  thing  which  concerns  us  so  mightily,  which 
touches  us  so  deeply,  that  it  is  necessary  to 
have  lost  all  feeling  in  order  to  be  indifferent 
about  it.  All  our  actions  and  thoughts  must 
take  different  paths  according  as  there  will  be 
or  will  not  be  eternal  goods  to  be  hoped  for,  so 
that  it  is  impossible  to  do  anything  with  intelli- 
gence and  judgment  if  it  is  not  regulated  by  the 
view  of  that  point  which  ought  to  be  our  final 
object."  l  Poets  and  moralists  have  often  com- 
pared human  life  to  a  journey.  Is  it  a  sign  of 
sound  judgment  or  of  prudence  to  entertain  no 
curiosity  about  how  the  journey  will  end, 
whether  in  a  black  gulf  of  oblivion  or  in  shining 
fields,  and  happy  company  and  a  sense  of  free- 
dom and  refreshment?  But  normal  or  ab- 
normal, such  a  condition  of  mind  is  not  fixed. 
It  is  at  the  mercy  of  a  thousand  accidents.  At 
any  moment  the  indifferent  soul  may  be  smitten 
by  mortal  loss,  and  awake  to  the  agony  of  a 
parting  that  seems  eternal.  We  may  be  be- 
lievers or  sceptics,  but  indifferentists  we  cannot 
permanently  be. 

1  Penates. 


24  THE  FUTURE  LIFE 

There  are  others  who  while  not  indifferent  to 
the  life  beyond  the  grave  are  content  to  say:  "I 
do  not  know. ' '  Huxley,  who  invented  the  word 
" agnostic"  to  describe  this  mental  attitude, 
maintained  that  as  a  scientific  man  he  was 
unable  either  to  affirm  or  to  deny  immortality. 
If  any  one  says  that  the  mind  persists  after  the 
dissolution  of  the  brain,  the  pure  scientist  must 
ask,  How  do  you  know?  On  the  other  hand,  if 
any  one  denies  such  persistence,  again  the  ques- 
tion must  be,  How  do  you  know?  Theoretically, 
such  a  position  is  tenable,  practically  it  is  not. 
Huxley  himself  could  not  carry  his  doctrine 
through  amid  the  sad  realities  of  experience. 
In  reply  to  a  letter  of  Charles  Kingsley,  who 
wrote  him  words  of  comfort  on  the  loss  of  a 
dear  child,  the  man  of  science  flung  over  his 
agnostic  doctrine  and  took  refuge  in  a  wondrous 
faith.  * '  The  ledger  of  the  Almighty, ' '  he  wrote, 
"is  strictly  kept,  and  every  one  of  us  has  the 
balance  of  his  operations  paid  over  to  him  at  the 
end  of  every  minute  of  his  existence."  Of 
course,  he  leaves  himself  open  to  his  own  query : 
How  do  you  know?  Are  the  pessimists  all 
wrong?  Are  there  no  monstrous  wrongs  in- 
flicted on  the  innocent?  In  a  world  such  as  this, 
given  over  to  intolerable  miseries,  to  bitter  suf- 
ferings that  often  fall  on  the  noblest  and  the 


IMMORTALITY  AND  MODERN  MAN  25 

most  self-sacrificing  of  their  kind,  what  scien- 
tific justification  is  there  for  the  doctrine  that 
the  Almighty  pays  to  every  man  at  the  end  of 
every  minute  of  his  existence  exactly  what  he 
deserves  ?  Yet  at  bottom  Huxley  is  right.  God 
is  just  and  in  the  end  His  justice  will  be  mani- 
fested to  every  moral  intelligence  in  the  uni- 
verse. But  this  is  not  the  language  of  science. 
It  is  the  prophetic  insight  of  faith.  Huxley 
solved  the  problem  practically  for  himself  by 
taking  Aristotle's  advice.  He  lived  as  if  he 
were  immortal.  His  ethics  was  the  ethics  of  an 
eternal  being.  In  other  words,  he  was  an  ag- 
nostic in  name  only,  though  his  contemporaries 
in  the  heat  of  conflict  often  misunderstood 
him. 

The  truth  is,  we  must  live,  and  we  must  live 
by  some  kind  of  belief  or  disbelief.  Now  either 
the  soul  persists  after  death  or  it  does  not. 
These  are  the  alternatives,  there  is  no  other. 
You  may  ignore  the  whole  question,  and  even 
pour  contempt  on  those  who  expend  thought 
upon  it,  but  you  do  not  thereby  get  rid  of  either 
horn  of  the  dilemma,  the  great  Either — Or  on 
which  hang  interests  unspeakably  momentous. 
Immortality  is  either  a  fact  or  it  is  a  falsehood. 
Do  you  say:  Granted,  but  I  am  in  no  position 
to  prove  it  to  be  one  or  other,  therefore  I  can 


26  THE  FUTURE  LIFE 

make  no  affirmation  either  by  way  of  belief  or 
disbelief.  Very  well,  but  you  are  living  as  if  one 
or  other  were  true.  Logically  you  may  be  en- 
titled to  the  name  " agnostic,"  but  in  actual 
practice  you  are  a  believer  or  a  disbeliever. 
Thus  in  the  very  centre  of  your  life  there  is  a 
profound  contradiction;  thought  and  conduct, 
logic  and  practice  go  different  roads,  and  you 
are  content  to  be  and  to  do  what  you  are  unable 
to  justify  at  the  bar  of  reason.  Is  it  in  this  lame 
and  impotent  conclusion  that  a  doctrine  of 
agnosticism  must  land  us!  It  is  impossible  to 
see  that  it  can  do  otherwise.  Only  the  elect  few, 
however,  are  likely  to  live  as  if  they  were  im- 
mortal, if  all  the  time  they  suspect  themselves 
to  be  only  mortal.  The  majority  will  more 
probably  decline  upon  a  matter-of-fact  point  of 
view  and  will  regard  the  immediate  present  as 
their  true  and  only  concern.  In  other  words, 
they  will  act  on  the  belief  that  the  soul  is  not 
immortal.  Renouncing  vain  dreams  of  the 
future,  they  will  be  prone  to  renounce  as  quix- 
otic and  inappropriate  to  such  poor  and  insig- 
nificant beings  as  men  are,  all  those  ideals  of 
self-sacrifice,  of  devotion  unto  death  to  some 
great  cause  which  have  till  now  been '  *  the  foun- 
tain-light of  all  our  day,  the  master-light  of  all 
our  seeing."  In  a  word,  agnosticism  is  simply 


IMMOKTALITY  AND  MODERN  MAN  27 

a  refuge  from  the  inconveniences  of  open  and 
frank  discussion  and  as  such  is  a  sign  of  intel- 
lectual pusillanimity.  Hence  bolder  spirits  de- 
cline the  shelter  from  the  storm  of  critical  de- 
bate, and  come  out  in  the  open  as  the  cham- 
pions of  dogmatic  materialism.  Among  these 
may  be  named  Professor  Haeckel,  Professor 
Metchnikoff,  and  Mr.  Edward  Clodd. 

Professor  Haeckel  lays  down  three  proposi- 
tions with  all  the  dogmatic  assurance  and  abso- 
lute finality  of  an  ancient  Church  Council:  1, 
there  is  no  living,  personal  God;  2,  the  will  is 
not  free;  3,  the  soul  is  not  immortal.  These 
assertions  deny  the  three  fundamental  truths  of 
religion  which  from  his  point  of  view  are  the 
"three  buttresses  of  superstition."  All  the 
proofs  of  arguments  for  life  after  death  are 
overturned  by  the  conclusions  of  modern 
science,  and  these  in  turn  may  be  summed  up 
in  the  now  accepted  commonplace  of  physiology 
that  our  mental  life  is  a  function  of  the  grey 
matter  of  the  brain,  from  which  it  follows  that 
the  function  vanishes  with  the  dissipation  of 
its  organ.  To  suppose  that  thought  can  sur- 
vive the  brain  would  be  equivalent  to  supposing 
that  the  steam  in  a  tea-kettle  could  survive  the 
destruction  of  the  tea-kettle.  Man  is  simply  a 
creature  of  the  natural  order.  His  brain  is  a 


28  THE  FUTURE  LIFE 

highly  organized  composite  of  certain  chemical 

elements  over  which  gleams  a  temporary  phos- 
'  '  phorescence,  a  by-product  of  molecular  activity, 

and  this  by-product  we  call  consciousness.  To 
cats  Professor  Haeckel  it  seems  as  absurd  to  say 

that  digestion  can  continue  after  the  stomach 
(~ —  has  been  destroyed  as  to  say  that  mind  can 

persist  after  the  brain  has  perished.    He  does 

not  hesitate  to  affirm  that  "the  belief  in  the 

fi   jin- 

immortality  of  the  soul  is  a  dogma  which  is  in 
hopeless  contradiction  with  the  most  solid  con- 
firmed truths  of  modern  science. ' ' 1  And  Mr. 
Joseph  McCabe,  his  English  disciple,  holds  that 
when  we  know  more  about  the  brain's  structure 
and  chemistry  we  may  find  that  they  are  per- 
fectly competent  to  account  for  all  mental  proc- 
esses. Metchnikoff  in  his  Nature  of  Man  with 
equal  hardihood  maintains  that  "a  future  life 
has  no  single  argument  to  support  it,  and  the 
non-existence  of  life  after  death  is  in  consonance 
with  the  whole  range  of  human  knowledge. '  ' 

Mr.  Edward  Clodd,  a  well-known  contributor 
to  English  "rationalist"  literature,  was  asked 
in  1915  by  the  editor  of  the  International  Psy- 
chic Gazette  to  send  a  message  of  comfort  to 
those  bereaved  by  the  war.  He  replied :  "  As  the 
evidence  that  we  possess  seems  to  me  conclusive 

1  Riddle  of  the  Universe,  p.  210. 


IMMORTALITY  AND  MODERN  MAN  29 

against  survival  after  death,  I  can  say  nothing 
on  the  lines  which  you  suggest."  1 

Now  all  these  pronouncements  are  specimens 
of  sheer  dogmatism.  Where  is  the  evidence  that 
disproves  the  persistence  of  personality  after 
death?  All  that  is  offered  us  is  another  dogma 
about  the  existence  of  "substance"  which  is 
named  " ether";  mind  and  matter  are  simply 
forms  or  aspects  of  the  one  eternal  substance. 
Throughout  the  entire  universe,  in  matter  and 
in  mind,  there  rules  the  great  abstract  law  of 
mechanical  causality.  "The  monism  of  the  uni- 
verse based  on  the  law  of  substance  proclaims 
the  absolute  dominion  of  the  great  eternal  iron 
laws."  These  abstract  notions  are  in  no  sense 
evidence  for  or  against  anything.  We  can  sum 
them  up  by  saying  that  the  soul's  continuance 
after  death  is  impossible  because  it  is  opposed 
to  the  monistic  assumptions  of  Haeckel's  phi- 
losophy. The  dogmatic  materialist  not  only  can 
bring  forward  no  evidence  against  immortality, 
he  refuses  to  consider  the  evidence  for  it  which 
is  being  slowly  accumulated  by  men  of  the  first 
distinction  in  science  and  philosophy.  Nothing 
so  betrays  the  narrowness  of  a  certain  type 
of  specialized  mind  as  the  determination  to  ig- 
nore the  evidence  of  psychic  research  on  the 

1  Quoted  by  J.  A.  Hill  in  Man  Is  a  Spirit,  p.  13. 


30  THE  FUTURE  LIFE 

ground  that  such  evidence  avails  nothing 
against  the  fundamental  principle:  conscious- 
ness is  a  function  of  brain.  When  the  advocate 
of  the  soul  allows  that  for  many  minds  trained 
in  laboratory  methods  the  only  satisfactory 
answer  is  to  isolate  the  phenomena,  to  show 
proofs  of  the  activity  of  mind  after  the  material 
organism  has  perished,  the  dogmatic  materialist 
declines  to  follow  his  chosen  method  of  observa- 
tion and  experiment,  on  the  ground  that  the 
evidence  so  obtained  can  be  referred  either  to 
fraud,  or  to  the  tricks  of  the  subconscious  factor 
in  mind.  When  such  men  as  Henry  Sidgwick, 
Arthur  J.  Balfour,  William  James,  F.  W.  H. 
Myers,  Sir  Oliver  Lodge,  Camille  Flammarion, 
Charles  Eichet,  James  H.  Hyslop,  William 
Crookes — to  name  only  a  few — have  asserted 
after  many  years '  investigation  and  study  that 
at  least  there  is  a  great  psychological  problem 
on  the  solution  of  which  may  depend  the  most 
vital  interests  of  mankind,  one  may  suppose 
that  a  policy  of  ridicule  or  of  sullen  silence 
on  the  part  of  the  dogmatic  materialist  will 
not  avail  and  that  sooner  or  later  he  will  be 
forced  to  face  the  evidence  and  to  offer  some 
coherent,  intelligible,  and  acceptable  interpre- 
tation of  it.  When  that  day  comes  his  dogma- 
tism will  vanish,  and  he  will  discover  that  the 


IMMORTALITY  AND  MODERN  MAN  31 

universe  being  much  more  mysterious  than  he 
had  imagined,  his  categories  of  thought  must 
needs  be  enlarged  so  as  to  include  the  new 
phenomena.  As  James  remarks,  the  universe 
will  be  shown  to  be  a  more  many-sided  affair 
than  any  sect,  even  the  scientific  sect,  allows  for. 
In  spite,  however,  of  the  various  influences 
making  against  belief  in  a  life  beyond,  there  are 
cheering  signs  of  a  turn  in  the  spiritual  tide. 
The  sufferings  and  bereavements  of  the  war 
have  recalled  the  minds  of  men  to  the  underly- 
ing realities  of  existence.  The  old  yet  ever-new 
questions  demand  an  answer:  Is  there  a  God? 
And  if  so  what  kind  of  a  God  is  He?  Has  He 
spoken  to  man?  Is  there  a  soul?  If  so,  what 
is  it  ?  For  what  purpose  are  we  on  this  planet  ? 
What  is  the  meaning  and  end  of  life?  And  no 
question  is  more  poignant,  more  laden  with  the 
soul's  hopes  and  fears  than  this :  After  death — 
what?  Hence  a  new  and  living  interest  in  the 
presuppositions,  the  conditions,  the  possibility, 
the  nature  of  the  future  life,  has  been  created. 
Ancient  solutions,  time-worn  arguments  no 
longer  tell.  The  metaphysical  theories  and  ec- 
clesiastical doctrines  that  satisfied  our  grand- 
fathers are  as  broken  reeds  today.  Yet  if  an 
age  is  to  be  judged  by  the  books  which  it  writes 
and  reads,  never  were  men  more  anxious  to  gain 


32  THE  FUTURE  LIFE 

some  certain  footing  amid  the  uncertainties  of 
thought  about  the  other  side  of  death  than  they 
are  at  the  present  time.  It  is  becoming  increas- 
ingly difficult  to  force  belief  by  coercive  author- 
ity on  minds  touched  by  the  modern  spirit; 
nevertheless,  the  failure  of  civilization,  the  in- 
stability attaching  to  what  seemed  the  solid 
realities  of  experience,  have  driven  thought  and 
hope  beyond  the  earthly  horizon  in  search  of  an 
abiding  foundation.  The  yoke  of  tradition  is 
broken,  but  the  free  wind  of  inspiration  is 
blowing  on  the  highways  of  the  world,  and  new 
hopes  are  stirring  within  the  human  heart. 

The  rise  of  the  Psychical  Research  movement 
marked  by  the  founding  of  the  English  Society 
in  1882  under  the  presidentship  of  Professor 
Henry  Sidgwick,  probably  the  most  judicial 
mind  in  the  England  of  his  day,  called  attention 
to  a  vast  mass  of  facts  ignored  by  academic 
science  which  point  to  the  existence  of  super- 
normal powers  of  certain  peculiarly  endowed 
persons  called  "psychics'*  or  "sensitives."  It 
was  believed  that  science  was  failing  in  its 
duty  to  the  world  as  long  as  these  obscure 
phenomena  were  allowed  to  remain  in  the 
hands  of  ignorance,  fraud,  or  charlatanry. 
Such  men  as  Mr.  W.  E.  Gladstone,  Sir  O. 
Lodge,  F.  W.  H.  Myers,  John  Ruskin,  Pro- 


IMMORTALITY  AND  MODERN  MAN  33 

fessor  Barrett,  Professor  James,  Sir  W. 
Crookes,  Mr.  Gerald  W.  Balfour,  Mr.  Andrew 
Lang,  Bishop  Boyd  Carpenter  took  a  great  in- 
terest in  the  work,  and  some  of  them  have  made 
distinct  contributions  to  psychological  science. 
Owing  mainly  to  the  credulity  and  superstition 
of  ordinary  spiritualism,  and  to  the  fraudulent 
devices  of  many  so-called  "mediums,"  the 
movement  in  America  lags  far  behind  the  Eng- 
lish movement  both  in  popular  support  and  in 
the  type  of  mind  enlisted  in  its  advocacy.  As  an 
illustration  of  the  conventional  spirit  that 
reigns  in  academic  circles  in  America,  it  may 
be  mentioned  that  when  some  years  ago  a  sunr"' 
of  money  was  bequeathed  to  a  certain  univer- 
sity for  the  investigation  of  psychic  phenomena, 
according  to  the  most  approved  scientific 
methods,  the  legacy  was  not  accepted  until  & 
other  seats  of  learning  had  been  sounded  as  to 
whether  the  use  of  money  for  such  a  purpose 
was  seemly  and  appropriate !  The  aversion  of 

the  great  body  of  scientific  men  to  psychical  v L 

research  arises  partly  from  a  priori  prejudice 
against  any  doctrine  which  if  proved  true  would 
shatter  the  framework  of  their  views  as  "to 
the  principles  that  govern  the  universe,"  and 
partly,  as  Professor  Barrett  says,  "from  a 
Disregard  of  the  essential  difference  between 


34  THE  FUTURE  LIFE 

physical  and  psychical  science.  The  only  gate- 
ways of  knowledge  according  to  the  former  are 
the  familiar  organs  of  sense,  whereas  the  latter 
indicates  that  these  gateways  can  be  occasion- 
ally transcended.  The  main  object  of  physical 
science  is  to  measure  and  forecast,  and  from  its 
phenomena  life  and  free  will  must  be  eliminated. 
Psychical  phenomena  can  neither  be  measured 
nor  forecast,  as  in  their  case  the  influence  of 
life  and  volition  can  neither  be  eliminated  nor 
foreseen. ' ' *  Psychic  phenomena  may  be  di- 
vided into  (1)  physical,  (2)  mental.  Some  of 
the  physical  type  are  so  astounding  as  to  be 
incredible,  though  attested  by  men  of  the 
highest  scientific  standing  and  of  blameless  in- 
tegrity. Among  these  may  be  mentioned:  (a) 
the  tipping  of  tables  with  but  slight  contact  of 
the  hands  of  a  certain  number  of  sitters,  (b) 
the  moving  of  tables  without  any  contact  what- 
ever, (c)  the  increase  of  weight  in  a  table  so 
that  the  muscular  strength  of  a  strong  man 
could  not  raise  it  from  the  ground,  (d)  the 
floating  of  the  table  in  mid-air  during  which  the 
psychic  increases  in  weight  by  an  amount  prac- 
tically equal  to  the  weight  of  the  table,  (e) 
rappings  in  or  on  a  table  or  on  the  walls  of  a 
room  by  which  intelligible  messages  have  been 

1  Psychical  Research,   p.   34. 


IMMOKTALITY  AND  MODERN  MAN  35 

spelled  out.1  These  rappings  vary  in  loudness 
from  the  slightest  taps  to  blows  which  shake 
the  room  as  though  a  sledge-hammer  were  being 
wielded  by  an  invisible  operator. 

But  however  impressive  to  the  average  mind 
the  physical  manifestations  may  be,  the  mental 
phenomena  are  likely  to  be  those  that  will  yield 
the  best  results.  At  all  events,  these  latter 
appeal  strongly  to  those  interested  first  and 
foremost  in  survival.  They  consist  of  communi- 
cations purporting  to  come  from  deceased  per- 
sons through  an  intermediary  spirit  called  *  *  the 
control"  who  has  possession  of  the  psychic's 
organism  for  the  time  being.  The  method  may 
be  either  oral  or  written  while  the  psychic  is 
either  in  a  condition  of  trance  or  fully  conscious. 
Hardly  a  week  passes  that  a  volume  does  not 
appear  containing  discussions,  discourses,  and 
even  highly  complicated  and  artistic  stories 
which  have  come  by  automatic  speech  or  writ- 
ing, or  through  the  agency  of  some  mechanical 
device,  such  as  the  planchette  or  the  ouija  board. 
An  attempt  will  be  made  to  appraise  the  value 
of  this  evidence  in  another  part  of  this  book. 
Here  it  suffices  to  say  that  as  the  experiments 

1  Those  interested  in  the  physical  phenomena  of  spiritism 
may  be  referred  to  C.  Flammarion,  Les  Forces  naturelles  in- 
connues;  Dr.  Crawford's  Reality  of  Psychic  Phenomena;  Von 
Schrenck-Notzing,  Materialisations-phanomene. 


36  THE  FUTURE  LIFE 

go  on  and  the  experimenters  grow  in  skill,  mes- 
sages have  been  received  so  convincing  in  their 
proof  of  identity  to  the  persons  receiving  them, 
that  some  of  the  most  critical  and  cautious  ob- 
servers have  abandoned  their  doubts  and  have 
proclaimed  themselves  believers  in  a  life  after 
death. 

With  the  new  interest  in  the  possibility  of  a 
post-mortem  existence  and  under  the  strain  of 
intolerable  grief  created  by  the  war,  many  un- 
happy hearts  have  tried  to  find  comfort  in  the 
supposed  messages  from  loved  ones  purporting 
to  come  through  mediums  who  make  money  out 
of  their  alleged  or  genuine  gift  and  who  are, 
therefore,  tempted  to  give  something  in  return 
for  payment.  It  may  be  taken  as  a  safe  rule — 
suspect  the  motives  of  any  "medium"  who 
accepts  money  and  at  the  same  time  refuses  to 
put  himself  or  herself  under  rigid  scientific  con- 
trol. To  those  in  grief  and  anxious  to  get  into 
touch  with  their  loved  friends  who  have  passed 
over,  I  would  earnestly  say:  Avoid  all  pro- 
;  fessional  mediums,  clairvoyants,  and  crystal- 
\  gazers,  and  communicate  with  the  American 
\Psychical  Research  Society,  the  officials  of 
which  will  be  happy  to  give  wise  and  trust- 
worthy counsel. 
Lastly,  the  expansion  and,  as  it  were,  de- 


IMMORTALITY  AND  MODERN  MAN  37 

materialization  of  the  physical  universe  indi- 
rectly makes  for  belief  in  the  spirituality  and 
abiding  work  of  personality.  Modern  science 
builds  the  mighty  fabric  of  organized  knowledge 
in  what  turns  out  to  be  supersensible  realities. 
Matter  which  the  popular  mind  conceives  to  be 
solid  and  substantial  is  not  what  it  seems;  on 
the  contrary,  it  contradicts  all  that  is  usually 
asserted  about  it.  It  resolves  itself  into  centres 
of  electrical  energy.  All  matter,  however  dif- 
ferent in  form,  has  a  common  basis.  The  ulti- 
mate atoms,  we  are  now  told,  consist  of  units 
of  negative  electricity,  and  of  an  equal  number 
of  units  of  positive  electricity ;  nothing  further 
has  been  as  yet  discovered  as  to  their  nature. 
This  solid  unyielding  framework  of  things  fades 
away  into  realities  that  can  be  apprehended 
only  by  the  speculative  intellect.  There  are 
depths  below  depths.  Ether,  a  highly  specu- 
lative reality,  believed  to  be  present  in  all  space, 
and  to  penetrate  the  densest  forms  of  ordinary 
matter,  makes  possible  the  propagation  of  heat, 
light,  and  electrical  action.  Now  the  more 
mysterious  and  unsearchable  the  ways  of  nature 
become,  the  less  incredible  is  the  suspicion  that 
there  is  in  man  a  force  indestructible  like  all 
other  forces  and  that  over  him  death  has  not 
dominion.  Mark  the  changed  attitude  toward 


38  THE  FUTURE  LIFE 

"miracle"  and  the  " supernatural."  These 
question-begging  terms  no  longer  affright  us. 
We  know  today  that  miracles  do  happen,  if  by 
miracle  is  meant,  as  Augustine  says,  not^an^ 
event  contrary  to  nature  but  only  to  nature  as 
we  know  it.  We  feel  sure  that,  however  ex- 
traordinary the  event,  with  wider  knowledge  it 
would  be  found  to  fall  under  the  operation  of 
laws  of  wider  scope  than  any  we  are  as  yet 
familiar  with.  As  the  universe  grows  upon  us 
in  depth,  in  subtle  refinement,  in  approximation 
to  what  we  call  spirit,  the  negations  of  material- 
ism lose  their  weight,  and  the  great  idea  is  tak- 
ing possession  of  many  thoughtful  persons  that 
not  matter  but  mind  is  the  ultimate  reality ;  that, 
therefore,  not  death  but  life  is  the  last  word  and 
everlasting  fact. 


CHAPTER  III 

THE   DESIRE   FOE  IMMORTALITY 

THERE  is  a  very  popular  belief,  fostered  by 
much  of  our  hymnology  and  preaching,  that 
everybody  is  intensely  desirous  of  living  on 
after  death;  and  that  even  the  few  who  have 
abandoned  hope  of  doing  so,  cannot  wholly  sup- 
press the  wish  that  it  were  otherwise.  Hence, — 
so  the  argument  runs, — a  desire  so  universal 
cannot  but  imply  the  existence  of  a  correspond- 
ing reality.  *  *  The  heart  has  reasons  which  the 
Reason  cannot  understand.  The  philosopher  in 
rummaging  through  the  treasure-house  of  the 
soul  finds  the  idea  of  immortality  and  also  the 
desire  for  it.  He  cannot  help  asking  if  this  de- 
sire for  immortality  may  not  be  evidence  of 
man's  capacity  for  it.  If  there  is  an  appetite  for 
life  everlasting, the  chances  are  that  the  appetite 
will  not  go  unsatisfied.  If  the  heart's  aspira- 
tions keep  leaping  toward  eternity,  it  is  not 
unlikely  that  eternity  has  some  blessed  thing  in" 
store."1 

1  C.  E.  Jefferson;  Why  We  May  Believe  in  Life  After  Death, 
pp.  137,  138, 

89 


40  THE  FUTURE  LIFE 

This  argument  unquestionably  makes  a 
powerful  appeal  to  the  emotions;  but  the  emo- 
tions are  not  given  us  in  order  to  guide  us  to 
truth.  They  have  their  place  in  strict  subordi- 
nation to  reason.  They  can  stimulate  the  ra- 
tional powers  and  lend  dynamic  force  to  the 
will,  but  by  themselves  they  are  no  criterion  of 
truth.  It  is  not  their  function  to  form  a  path- 
way to  reality.  We  shall  see  a  little  later  what 
element  of  truth  lies  in  the  contention.  It  is 
so  obscure  indeed  that  it  is  liable  to  create  illu- 
sion and  foster  unwarranted  expectations. 

But  it  may  be  well  to  say  first  a  few  words 
about  the  primary  assertion  that  the  desire  for 
immortality  is  universal.  All  men,  we  are  told, 
long  for  personal  continuance  after  death. 

Do  they?  It  is  true  that  the  majority  of 
religions  have  held  up  the  hope  of  immortality 
before  the  eyes  of  men,  yet  the  Hebrew  faith,  as 
the  prophets  proclaimed  it,  and  the  religion  of 
Buddha  in  its  purest  form  renounced  the 
thought,  the  one  teaching  that  man's  real  des- 
tiny was  limited  by  the  grave,  the  other  prom- 
ising as  the  prize  to  be  won,  Nirvana,  in  which 
consciousness  shall  be  "as  a  blown-out  lamp." 
The  pessimism  of  the  East,  which  looks  forward 
to  sheer  annihilation,  has  invaded  the  West,  and 
philosophers  like  Schopenhauer  and  poets  like 


THE  DESIRE  FOE  IMMORTALITY    41 

Thomson  and  Swinburne  have  glorified  death  as 
the  last  and  highest  word  of  the  universe  to  its 
creature,  man. 

Leconte  de  Lisle,  the  popular  French  poet, 
apostrophizes  death  as  man's  truest  friend: 
"Thou,  0  Divine  Death,  into  which  everything 
returns  and  is  blotted  out  of  being,  receive  thy 
children  into  thy  serene  bosom;  enfranchize  us 
from  time,  number  and  states,  and  give  back  to 
us  the  repose  which  life  has  troubled." 

Mr.  H.  Gr.  Wells,  who  has  exchanged  agnosti- 
cism for  an  ardent  and  even  belligerent  theism, 
regards  with  supreme  indiif erence  personal  con- 
tinuance after  death.  "Many  people,"  he  says, 
"seem  to  find  the  prospect  of  a  final  personal 
death  unendurable.  This  impresses  me  as 
egotism.  I  have  no  such  appetite  for  a  separate 
immortality."1  Mr.  Gr.  Bernard  Shaw,  how- 
ever much  he  differs  from  Mr.  Wells  on  other 
matters,  agrees  with  him  here.  "I  have  a 
strong  feeling,"  he  remarks,  "that  I  shall  be 
glad  when  I  am  dead  and  done  for — scrapped 
at  last  to  make  room  for  somebody  better, 
cleverer,  more  perfect  than  myself."2 

Professor  J.  H.  Leuba  informs  us  that  of  the 
highly  educated  men  of  scientific  temper  to 

1  God  the  Invisible  King,  preface,  p.  xix. 

1  Quoted  by  J.  H.  Holmes  Is  Death  the  Endt,  p.  314. 


42  THE  FUTURE  LIFE 

whom  he  put  the  question  whether  they  desired 
immortality,  27  per  cent,  did  not  desire  it  at 
all,  39  per  cent,  desired  it  moderately,  and  only 
34  per  cent,  admitted  that  they  desired  it 
intensely. 

Moreover,  when  appeal  is  made  to  the  passion 
for  life  we  must  not  forget  that  sad  phenomenon 
of  our  time,  the  passion  for  death.  Sociological 
experts  tell  us  that  before  the  war  suicide  was 
alarmingly  on  the  increase.  It  is  obvious  that 
only  the  man  who  has  convinced  himself  that 
death  ends  all  can  risk  the  chance  in  which  so 
many  of  his  fellow-men  believe,  that  it  does  not 
end  all,  /and  rather  than  bear  the  troubles  that 
he  has,  prefers  those  that  he  knows  not  of. 
When  some  overwhelming  calamity,  a  bitter 
sorrow  or  an  intolerable  shame,  overtakes  the 
modern  man,  he  broods  on  death  as  a  door  of 
escape. 

"To  die — to  sleep — 

!_  To  sleep !  perchance  to  dream,  ay,  there's  the  rub, 
For  in  that  sleep  of  death  what  dreams  may  come."  ) 

It  is  the  " dreams"  that  daunt  at  times  the 
suicide's  purpose.  If  only  he  could  be  sure! 
It  is  the  fear  lest,  after  all,  the  burden  he  would 
lay  down  may  await  him  behind  the  veil,  that 


THE  DESIRE  FOR  IMMORTALITY     43 

puzzles  his  will,  and  gives  pause  to  his  resolve. 
For  one  who  succeeds  in  silencing  the  voice  of 
nature,  there  are  probably  many  who  draw 
back,  unable  to  face  the  unknown,  because  by  no 
means  certain  that  it  spells  extinction.  But 
must  not  facts  like  these  modify  the  notion  of 
a  universal  desire  for  a  future  life? 

Yet  there  is  something  to  be  said  on  the  other 
side.  Much  of  the  suppression  or  renunciation 
of  a  wish  for  personal  immortality  springs  from 
a  false  or  contracted  view  of  the  life  beyond. 
Buddhism  was  a  Gospel  of  hope  to  the  people 
of  India.  It  freed  them  from  the  intolerable 
incubus  of  a  non-moral  universe,  of  endless 
Heavens  and  Hells,  arbitrary  in  character, 
which  threatened  to  crush  out  the  spiritual  life. 
Better  a  thousand  times  the  passionless  non- 
existence  of  Nirvana  than  an  infinite  series  of 
rewards  and  punishments  which  had  no  organic 
connection  with  the  moral  states  of  the  saved 
or  the  lost.  The  same  reaction  may  be  found 
in  the  history  of  Christian  thought.  Schleier- 
macher,  whose  influence  on  modern  religious 
thought  has  been  so  far-reaching,  is  often 
quoted  as  an  illustration  of  how  a  great  Chris- 
tian thinker  can  get  along  without  any  convic- 
tion as  to  a  life  hereafter.  But  the  motive  of 
his  doubt  is  more  significant  than  the  doubt 


44  THE  FUTURE  LIFE 

itself.  "The  secret  selfishness,  the  hidden 
earthly  sentiment,  the  manner  in  which  the 
majority  of  men  picture  immortality  to  them- 
selves, and  their  longing  after  that,  seem  to  me 
irreligious;  nay,  their  wish  to  be  immortal  has 
no  foundation  but  their  aversion  to  the  real 
goal  of  religion.  They  have  no  wish  to  escape 
from  the  familiar  limitations  and  at  best  long 
for  wider  eyes  and  better  limbs.  But  God 
speaks  to  them  in  the  words  of  Scripture :  '  He 
who  loses  his  life  for  My  sake  shall  find  it.' 
They  might  at  least  try  to  begin  their  life  for 
the  love  of  God,  to  sink  their  own  personality 
even  here  and  to  live  in  the  One  and  the 
Whole." 

In  these  noble  words  we  read  a  rejection  of 
immortality  in  the  interests  of  religion  itself! 
But  may  we  not  conclude  that  the  wish  for  per- 
sonal survival  would  re-emerge,  if  only  this 
wish  could  be  so  formulated  as  to  be  worthy 
alike  of  man  and  of  God?  Not  by  the  destruc- 
tion of  the  desire,  but  by  its  purification  from 
every  taint  of  meanness  and  self-seeking,  can 
man  rise  to  his  true  dignity  as  an  ethical  and 
aspiring  personality. 

The  same  principle  comes  to  light  in  the 
feeling  of  Mr.  Shaw.  He  wishes  when  death 
comes  to  make  way  for  somebody  better  and 


THE  DESIRE  FOR  IMMORTALITY     45 

abler  than  himself.  Such  a  thought  could 
only  come  to  one  who  conceives  of  the  future 
world  as  purely  static,  from  which  the  bound- 
less possibilities  of  intellectual  and  spiritual 
growth  are  excluded.  Mr.  Shaw  has  visions  of 
social  betterment,  glimpses  ideals  in  art  and 
literature  not  yet  realized,  and  knows  that 
ethically  the  goal  for  which  he  strives  is  a  flying 
one.  Would  he  turn  away  in  weariness  of  soul 
from  a  future  life  where  these  prophecies  might 
receive  progressive  fulfilment?  It  is  clear  that 
he  is  unconsciously  carrying  over  into  the  world 
beyond  some  undissolved  residuum  of  thought 
belonging  to  the  very  orthodoxy  which  he  had 
imagined  himself  to  have  outgrown. 

Besides,  on  this  matter  there  is  variety  of 
experience,  and  names  of  weight  may  be  quoted 
on  the  other  side.  Mr.  G.  Lowes  Dickinson, 
whose  attitude  toward  historical  Christianity  is 
as  critical  and  at  times  as  hostile  as  that  of 
Mr.  Wells  or  Mr.  Shaw,  has  written  words 
which  show  that  he  stands  the  poles  apart  from 
the  current  literary  conception.  ' '  Western  op- 
timism in  my  opinion,"  he  says,  "is  doomed 
unless  we  can  believe  that  there  is  more  sig- 
nificance in  individual  lives  than  appears  upon 
the  surface ;  that  there  is  a  destiny  reserved  for 
them  more  august  than  any  to  which  they  can 


46  THE  FUTURE  LIFE 

attain  in  their  life  of  threescore  years  and  ten. 
On  this  point  I  can,  of  course,  speak  my  own 
conviction, — the  conviction  that  at  the  bottom 
of  every  human  soul,  even  of  those  that  deny  it, 
there  lurks  the  insatiable  hunger  for  eternity; 
that  we  desire,  in  Browning's  phrase,  something 
that  will 

'Make  time  break 

And  let  us  pent-up  creatures  through 
Into  eternity,  our  due ; ' 

and  that  nothing  short  of  this  will  ever  appear, 
in  the  long  run,  once  men  have  begun  to  think 
and  feel,  to  be  a  sufficient  justification  and 
apology  for  the  life  into  which  we  are  born."  * 

Mr.  Dickinson's  conviction  is  in  line  with  that 
of  the  greatest  master  of  poetic  art  in  the  nine- 
teenth century.  "I  can  hardly  understand," 
says  Tennyson,  "how  any  great  imaginative 
man,  who  has  deeply  lived,  suffered,  thought 
and  wrought,  can  doubt  of  the  soul's  continuous 
progress  in  the  after-life."2  James  Knowles, 
the  friend  of  Tennyson,  says  of  him:  "His  be- 
lief in  personal  immortality  was  passionate — I 
think  almost  the  strongest  passion  he  had."  s 

1  Religion  and  Immortality,  p.  43. 

'Alfred  Lord  Tennyson:  A  Memoir  by  His  Son,  Vol.  I,  p. 
321. 

3  Nineteenth  Century,  January,  1893. 


THE  DESIRE  FOE  IMMORTALITY     47 

Or  take  the  testimony  Of  Dr.  Felix  Adler,  the 
honored  head  of  the  Ethical  Culture  Movement, 
who  certainly  is  not  biased  by  any  theological 
motive:  "As  for  myself  I  admit  that  I  do  not 
so  much  desire  immortality  as  that  I  do  not  see 
how  I  can  escape  it.  If  I  as  an  individual  am 
actually  under  obligation  to  achieve  perfection, 
if  the  command,  'Be  ye  therefore  perfect,'  is 
addressed,  not  only  to  the  human  race  in  gen- 
eral, but  to  every  single  member  of  it  (and  it 
is  thus  that  I  must  interpret  the  moral  im- 
perative), then  on  moral  grounds  I  do  not 
see  how  my  being  can  stop  short  of  the  attain- 
ment marked  out  for  it,  of  the  goal  set  up 
for  it."1 

Even  in  the  case  of  those  unhappy  souls  for 
whom  life  has  lost  its  savour  and  who  turn 
from  it  in  disgust,  it  may  well  be  questioned 
whether  in  every  instance  the  passion  for  death 
is  the  hope  of  or  belief  in  extinction.  Many  a 
suicide  has  left  behind  him  a  pathetic  prayer  for 
forgiveness,  not  from  man  only,  but  still  more 
from  God,  because  of  the  motive  of  the  deed, 
perhaps  unbearable  mental  or  physical  pain; 
perhaps  overstrained  remorse  for  some  shame- 
ful memory,  some  " rooted  sorrow,"  which  no 
healing  hand  could  "pluck  from  the  brain." 

1  Life  and  Destiny,  pp.  38-39. 


48  THE  FUTURE  LIFE 

These  prayers,  we  may  well  believe,  will  not  go 
unheard  of  the  Eternal  Compassion,  but  how 
could  they  ever  have  been  offered  by  any  one 
believing  that  death  for  him  meant  eternal  un- 
consciousness? On  the  contrary,  they  imply 
that  the  suppliant  believes  that  there  is  a  world 
beyond  where  he  may  have  to  answer  for  his 
act,  but  he  feels  that  he  cannot  be  worse  off 
there  than  here,  and  that  if  misery  should  be- 
fall, at  least  it  will  not  be  the  misery  that  now 
drowns  his  being  in  darkness.  And  thus  it 
happens  that  the  suicide  called  to  testify 
against  our  belief  turns  out  not  infrequently 
to  be  a  witness  for  it. 

On  the  whole,  then,  we  seem  justified  in  con- 
cluding that  though  the  longing  for  a  future 
life  does  not  characterize  all  men,  nor  is  always 
at  full  tide  in  the  experience  of  any  particular 
man,  yet  it  does  appear,  consciously  or  sub- 
consciously, in  the  great  majority  of  the  race, 
in  one  form  or  another.  The  desire  may  thin 
out  into  a  vague  and  uncertain  inclination  to- 
ward a  vision  but  dimly  apprehended,  or  it  may 
rise  into  a  burning  intensity,  as  in  the  experi- 
ence of  the  great  mystics,  in  which  all  finite 
interests  are  consumed;  but  the  desire  in  some 
degree  cannot  be  denied  to  be  an  all  but  uni- 
versal possession  of  humanity.  Nor  can  it  be 


THE  DESIEE  FOR  IMMORTALITY     49 

doubted  that  many,— and  they  not  among  the 
least  critical  and  reflective  of  their  kind, — find 
in  this  belief  and  hope  the  only  alternative  to 
pessimism,  the  only  rational  clue  to  the  riddle 
of  life.  It  is  in  the  religious  history  of  man 
that  the  hope  is  seen  especially  to  be  a  normal 
part  of  man's  spiritual  experience.  From  the 
animism  of  the  savage  up  to  the  most  refined 
belief  of  civilized  man,  the  idea  of  immortality 
has  been  at  work,  though  at  certain  epochs  and 
among  certain  peoples  it  has  fallen  under  an 
eclipse.  Not  only  so,  but  wherever  the  creative 
energy  of  mind  has  functioned  at  its  loftiest 
levels  of  inspiration,  as  in  the  prophetic  insight 
of  a  Plato,  a  Goethe,  or  an  Emerson,  it  has  been 
unable  to  brook  the  thought  that  at  last  its 
sovereign  strength  should  be  laid  low  in  the  dust 
of  a  non-spiritual  nature. 

When  we  have  said  all  this,  it  still  remains  to 
ask  what  bearing  it  has  upon  our  problem?  I 
am  unable  to  see  that  the  desire  for  immortality 
has  any  direct  or  vital  bearing  on  the  fact  of 
immortality.  It  seems  as  though  both  the  de- 
fenders and  the  opponents  of  the  doctrine  have 
exaggerated  the  importance  of  man's  desire  for 
a  life  in  the  Beyond,  though,  of  course,  for  very 
different  reasons.  How  can  our  wishes,  what- 
ever pragmatic  value  they  may  have  in  our 


50  THE  FUTURE  LIFE 

limited  experience,  be  any  true  index  to  the  ulti- 
mate quality  of  the  universe!  How  do  we  know 
that  the  order  of  things  is  friendly  to  our  long- 
ing! The  existence  of  the  most  insistent  long- 
ing does  not  guarantee  the  reality  of  the  object 
longed  for. 

I  may  desire  to  write  another  "Hamlet"  or 
"Faust"  or  amass  a  monstrous  fortune  or 
achieve  a  thousand  and  one  wonders  that  would 
be  eminently  serviceable  for  the  world ;  but  what 
warrant  do  these  yearnings  offer  that  they  will 
find  fulfilment!  So,  too,  I  may  desire  to  over- 
leap the  barriers  of  the  grave,  yet  what  avails 
it,  if  the  natural  order  says  "no"!  Besides 
if  I  desire  a  thing,  it  can  only  be  because  I  set 
a  value  on  it,  and  this  I  cannot  do  unless  I 
know  or  suspect  something  as  to  its  nature.  If 
I  wish  for  a  continuance  of  my  personal  con- 
sciousness after  death  it  must  be  because  I  con- 
ceive that  in  some  way  such  continuance  will 
minister  to  my  well-being.  How  do  I  know  this  ! 
Who  has  explored  the  undiscovered  country  and 
has  returned  to  report  upon  its  nature  and  char- 
acteristics! In  short,  turn  the  matter  as  we 
may  in  our  minds,  we  cannot  avoid  the  conclu- 
sion that  our  desire  to  live  after  death  is  simply 
an  enlargement  of  primitive  racial  instincts, 
born  of  our  ancestral  reactions  to  the  pressure 


/     tf     f\/>        "X* 

THE  DESIRE  FOR  I^MOB!&Jj¥r  51 

of  natural  forces.  QVe  want  to  live  on  because 
on  the  whole  we  feel  life  is  good) 

What  now  about  the  desire,  not  for  life  but 
for  death  as  a  final  fact?  Do  you  say:  I  have 
feasted  well  at  the  banquet  of  life ;  why  should 
I  not  make  way  for  another  guest?  I  am  sur- 
feited with  all  that  life  had  to  give,  aesthetic  and 
sensuous  enjoyment,  the  pleasures  of  the  intel- 
lect, the  happiness  of  loving  and  of  being  loved. 
I  am  more  than  satisfied,  and  now,  farewell ! 

"Asking  no  heaven,  we  lear  no  fabled  hell. 
Life  is  a  feast  and  we  have  banqueted — 
Shall  not  the  worms  as  well? 

"The  after-silence  when  the  feast  is  o'er, 

And  void  the  places  where  the  minstrels  stood, 
Differs  in  nought  from  what  has  been  before, 
And  is  nor  ill,  nor  good." 1 

To  use  Mr.  Wells 's  phrase:  "This  impresses 
me  as  egotism."  What  right  have  you  to 
imagine  that  the  universe  is  so  constructed  as 
to  gratify  your  wishes,  created  by  disgust  or 
indifference  for  existence?  Why  should  the 
world- whole  be  supposed  to  be  governed  by  your 
sense  of  sensuous  and  intellectual  repletion? 
What  about  the  myriads  who  have  suffered  per- 

*  William  Watson :   The  Great  Misgiving. 


52  THE  FUTURE  LIFE 

haps  the  most  tragic  fate  that  can  befall  the 
soul,  the  crushing  out,  that  is  to  say,  of  intel- 
lectual energies  by  the  brute  force  of  circum- 
stance, the  sacrifice  of  all  that  is  divine  in  life 
by  the  slow  corrosion  of  sordid  cares  and  mean 
necessities  ?  Has  the  universe  nothing  to  say  to 
these  victims  of  evil  fortune  except  to  award 
them  the  crowning  sadness  of  a  contemptuous 
dismissal  to  the  black  night  of  nothingness  f  If 
we  could  convince  ourselves  of  this,  we  must 
resign  all  hope  of  understanding  the  meaning  of 
life,  and  the  world,  ethically  considered,  is  no 
longer,  in  Carlylian  phrase,  a  God's  cosmos, 
but  a  Devil's  chaos. 

If  it  be  said  that  the  desire  to  survive  death 
is  low  and  selfish,  a  vulgar  clinging  to  our  own 
poor,  petty,  and  constricted  interests,  the 
answer  must  be  that  at  its  best  our  revolt 
against  the  extinction  of  the  rational  spirit  is 
motived  by  the  agonizing  reflection  that  others 
whom  we  have  known  and  loved,  and  whose  his- 
tory has  been  a  benediction  to  the  world,  should, 
in  the  plenitude  of  their  moral  and  rational 
powers,  be  doomed  to  annihilation.  It  is 
against  this  unintelligible  decree  that  our 
noblest  instincts  rise  up  in  passionate  protest. 
Assure  me  that  these  other  lives,  so  noble  and 
so  fair,  so  rich  in  the  beauteous  things  of  the 


THE  DESIRE  FOR  IMMORTALITY     53 

spirit,  shall  not  be  quenched  in  the  dust  of 
death,  and  if  need  be,  I  shall  renounce  my  wish 
for  my  own  continuance,  and  be  content  to  have 
it  so.  ''When  a  man  passionately  refuses  to 
believe  that  the  'wages  of  virtue'  can  be  dust, 
it  is  often  less  from  any  private  reckoning  about 
his  own  wages  than  from  a  disinterested  aver- 
sion to  a  universe  so  fundamentally  irrational 
that  'good  for  the  individual'  is  not  ultimately 
identified  with  universal  good. ' ' * 

We  conclude,  then,  that  the  desire  for  the 
after-life,  when  purified  of  its  baser  alloy,  is 
more  consonant  with  man's  moral  and  spiritual 
integrity  than  indifference  or  aversion,  yet  of 
itself  cannot  constitute  a  ground  of  belief.  It 
is  a  suggestion,  but  for  the  basis  of  our  con- 
viction we  must  look  elsewhere. 

On  the  other  hand,  our  desires  have  their 
place  in  the  selection  of  the  ends  for  which  we 
live.  One  man  has  as  much  a  right  to  wish  for 
a  future  life,  in  w^hich  any  virtue  acquired  here 
may  go  on  to  perfection,  as  another  man  has  to 
desire  wealth  and  social  place  in  this  world.  In 
both  cases,  the  ideals  set  before  the  mind  are 
constituted  by  hopes  and  fears.  Were  there  no 
wish  for  an  after-existence,  the  problem  of 
human  destiny  would  soon  cease  to  engage  our 

1  Henry  Sidgwick:  The  Methods  of  Ethics,  p.  504. 


54  THE  FUTURE  LIFE 

interest ;  it  would  die  from  sheer  inanition.  A 
worthy  ambition  to  live  on  after  death  is  not 
the  sign  of  a  moral  weakling  or  of  a  nature  cast 
in  a  negative  mould.  It  would  be  in  harmony 
with  an  optimistic  view  of  the  world  to  say  that 
such  a  desire  ought  not  to  be  baulked  of  its 
realization,  but  whether  this  is  so  or  not  must 
be  determined  by  the  findings  of  ethical  reflec- 
tion, of  spiritual  intuition,  and  of  such  discov- 
eries as  deeper  knowledge  of  the  psychic  depths 
of  personality  may  reveal. 


CHAPTER  IV 

HINDRANCES  TO  BELIEF   IN    IMMORTALITY 

DEATH  has  been  called  "the  great  common- 
place, ' '  but  it  is  a  commonplace  that  never  fails 
to  awaken  our  astonishment.  And  perhaps 
never  so  poignantly  as  today  has  this  challenge 
stirred  the  hearts  of  men.  The  premature  cut- 
ting off  of  millions  that  formed  the  flower  of  the 
race  has,  as  might  be  expected,  created  the  most 
painful  reactions  in  the  general  mind,  and  men 
are  asking  as  they  have  never  asked  before: 
What  is  Death?  Is  there  anything  beyond  the 
veil  ?  If  there  is  something,  what  is  it !  Bitter 
and  painful  experiences  are  driving  multitudes 
to  put  these  questions,  and  even  in  profess- 
edly religious  circles,  the  tragic  fact  is  that  the 
oracles  are  dumb,  and  that  no  articulate  answer 
is  forthcoming.  All  unconsciously  to  them- 
selves, their  traditional  faith  in  a  future  life 
has  been  slowly  undermined  and  when  the  day 
of  adversity  has  come,  they  find  themselves 
without  a  refuge,  staring  into  the  black  pit  of 
despair.  Doubtless  in  all  ages  belief  in  immor- 
tality has  been  shadowed  with  difficulty  and  mis- 

55 


56  THE  FUTURE  LIFE 

giving.  The  obvious  phenomena  of  death,  the 
inability  of  the  mind  to  visualize  the  transition 
from  an  incarnate  to  a  discarnate  state,  or  to 
picture  the  form  which  life  assumes  in  the  world 
beyond — these  have  always  been  sinister  argu- 
ments even  among  the  uncultivated.  Moreover, 
immortality  has  from  time  to  time  shared  the 
fate  of  other  great  beliefs,  such  as  God  and 
Freedom,  in  accordance  with  the  ruling  forces 
of  any  given  age.  In  the  period  of  the  Enlight- 
enment, for  example,  which  taught  man's  native 
ability  to  obey  the  moral  law,  the  autonomy  of 
his  will,  and  in  a  word  his  moral  independence, 
it  is  clear  that  a  doctrine  of  immortality  formu- 
lated in  terms  of  rewards  and  punishments 
could  have  no  standing.  What  need  of  such 
extraneous  supports,  if  man  has  the  power  to 
become  virtuous  of  himself,  and  has  an  inborn 
tendency  to  realize  the  good?  No  wonder  that 
the  century  which  had  identified  immortality 
with  a  scheme  of  "prize-morality"  should  find 
the  first  incredible  when  it  found  the  second 
superfluous. 

Now  if  we  look  back  on  the  past  fifty  or  sixty 
years,  we  shall  find,  in  addition  to  those  funda- 
mental handicaps  to  belief  arising  from  the 
domination  exercised  over  us  by  the  senses  and 
the  failure  of  imagination  to  conceive  or  picture 


HINDRANCES  TO  BELIEF  57 

the  immaterial,  certain  specific  causes  at  work 
which  account  for  the  present  widespread  doubt 
and  denial.  These  causes,  I  believe,  will  be 
found  to  be  three :  1.  The  breakdown  of  religious 
authority  as  embodied  in  codes  and  laws  and 
institutions,  and  more  specifically,  the  dissolu- 
tion of  the  traditional  forms  in  which  faith  in 
immortality  has  been  expressed,  under  the  com- 
bined influence  of  advancing  ethical  insight  and 
deeper  knowledge  of  the  New  Testament.  2. 
The  rise  of  modern  materialism,  which,  in  the 
popular  mind,  is  bound  up  with  the  triumphs  of 
natural  science;  and  more  particularly,  that 
form  of  materialism  which  finds  in  conscious- 
ness simply  a  function  of  the  brain,  and  there- 
fore sharing  the  fate  of  the  brain.  3.  The  rise 
and  spread  of  Socialism  among  the  wage- 
earning  classes,  and  more  especially  the  doc- 
trine of  Karl  Marx  and  his  followers,  with  its 
materialistic  conception  of  history  and  its  re- 
sultant denial  of  spirit  in  man. 

I.     THE  BREAKDOWN  OF  THE  TRADITIONAL  FORM  OF 
THE  IMMORTAL  HOPE 

Whatever  we  may  hold  as  to  the  origin  of  the 
belief  in  a  future  life — and  it  is  probable  that 
this  origin  is  to  be  found  in  the  ghosts  which 


58  THE  FUTURE  LIFE 

visited  the  dreams  of  savage  men — it  is  not  to 
be  denied  that  the  belief  itself  has  sunk  its  roots 
deep  in  the  soil  of  religion  and  has  drawn 
thence  its  tenacity  and  power.  Hence  it  has  be- 
come a  religious  phenomenon,  and  the  hope 
which  it  offers  to  the  human  heart  is  shaped  by 
the  specific  religion  in  which  it  appears ;  nor  is 
it  at  all  certain  that  these  ancient  beliefs  did 
not  rest,  in  many  instances,  on  good  and  genu- 
ine experiences,  and  we  may  say:  as  is  the  re- 
ligion so  is  the  faith  in  immortality;  the  higher 
the  religion  the  more  spiritual  is  its  doctrine  of 
the  future. 

Now  when  we  turn  to  the  Christian  religion 
we  are  at  once  struck  by  the  contrast  between 
the  teaching  of  its  Founder  and  that  of  His 
disciples.  The  characteristic  features  of 
Christ's  treatment  of  the  question  are  unwaver- 
ing and  sublime  assurance  of  the  fact  of  im- 
mortality with  great  reserve  as  to  its  nature 
and  precise  conditions.  Only  a  few  of  His  say- 
ings, and  two  or  three  of  His  parables  enshrine 
His  convictions  about  human  destiny.  Yet  He 
has  so  transfigured  the  beliefs  and  conceptions 
of  all  who  had  gone  before  Him  that  Chris- 
tianity has  been  justly  called  the  religion  of 
immortality.  The  paradox  is  resolved  when  we 
remember  that  it  was  not  His  teaching  only  but 


HINDRANCES  TO  BELIEF  59 

far  more  his  post-mortem  appearances  to  His 
followers  that  created  the  dynamic  of  His  reli- 
gion. Over  against  the  apparent  meagreness  of 
Christ's  words  stands  the  rich  luxuriance  of 
visions  and  doctrines  and  hopes  as  seen  re- 
flected in  the  writings  of  Evangelist  and 
Apostle.  Around  the  simple  belief  in  continued 
communion  with  God  beyond  death,  thus  gath- 
ered in  the  course  of  time  a  complicated  series 
of  beliefs,  taken  over  for  the  most  part  from 
Jewish  tradition  and  environment,  and  handed 
down  to  the  modern  world  as  moral  and  re- 
ligious truth.  It  is  the  presence  of  this  Jewish 
Apocalyptic  element  in  the  teaching  of  the 
churches  that  explains  why  so  many  turn  away 
from  all  thought  about  the  future  life  as  futile 
and  hopeless.  Moreover,  it  is  to  be  noted  that 
the  idea  of  Heaven  in  the  Book  of  Revelation 
reflects  the  socio-political  life  of  the  time. 
Heaven  is  pictured  as  a  palace  with  spacious 
gardens  and  golden  gates,  God  as  a  Potentate 
clothed  with  might  and  majesty,  and  man  as  a 
being  prostrate  before  Him  in  reverent  sub- 
jection. There  are,  indeed,  other  elements 
created  by  the  new  spirit  of  the  Gospel,  but 
they  are  incidental  and  subordinate.  "People 
do  not  believe  in  a  future  life,"  writes  a  well- 
known  Anglican  scholar,  "because  the  forms 


60  THE  FUTURE  LIFE 

in  which  the  belief  has  been  presented  to  their 
minds,  seem,  on  the  one  hand,  to  be  intel- 
lectually untenable,  and  on  the  other,  to  be 
unattractive  or  even  repellent.  Traditional 
pictures  of  Hell  seem  morally  revolting;  while 
the  Heaven  of  Sunday  School  teaching  or 
popular  hymnology  is  a  place  which  the  plain 
man  does  not  believe  to  exist,  and  which  he 
would  not  want  to  go  to,  if  it  did.  '  '  1  Doubt- 
less the  symbols  of  the  Book  of  Revelation, 
with  its  pearly  gates  and  golden  streets,  its 
strange  and  monstrous  animal  figures,  its  em- 
phasis on  ecstatic  worship  as  the  sole  occu- 
pation of  the  heavenly  world,  in  brief,  its  non- 
human  quality  of  life,  has  had  much  to  do  with 
the  present  revolt  against  ecclesiastical  teaching 
about  a  state  of  future  existence.  A  singular 
confirmation  of  this  judgment  is  supplied  in 
the  private  letter  of  an  American  soldier  who 
was  a  member  of  the  Foreign  Legion  and  who 
laid  down  his  life  in  the  war.  He  writes  as 
follows: 


"Living  as  we  do,  with  death  as  a  constant  com- 
panion, has  but  deepened  my  conviction  of  something 
after  this  life.  But  it  has  destroyed  my  belief  (what 
belief  I  may  have  had)  in  the  conventional  heaven 
and  hell  of  theology.  With  all  reverence,  I  can  think 

1  B.  H.  Streeter  in  Essays  on  Immortality,  p.  135. 


HINDRANCES  TO  BELIEF  61 

of  nothing  more  deadly  than  an  eternity  devoted  to 
singing,  playing,  and  adoration.  A  man's  soul  must 
include  his  capacity  for  action,  work,  his  creative 
faculties,  I  think;  to  me  our  power  to  imagine  and 
create  is  one  of  the  evidences  of  God  in  us.  That,  and 
the  numbers  of  young  men  just  on  the  threshold  of 
their  creative  life — musicians,  writers,  painters — men 
who  could  look  at  a  river  and  vision  and  build  power 
plants  and  factories;  yes,  soldiers  who  could  look  at 
a  map  and  vision  armies  in  place  and  mamEUvring — 
these  men,  killed,  utterly  destroyed  in  a  second  by  a 
few  ounces  of  explosives,  have  made  impossible  the 
belief  that  all  that  their  minds  held  is  definitely  lost 
to  humanity.  I  believe  that  death  is  followed  by  life 
as  sunset  is  followed  by  sunrise,  but  by  a  life  much 
more  closely  related  to  this  one  than  theological  dogma 
would  have  us  believe.  ..." 

But  other  and  deeper  causes  have  been  at 
work. 

To  begin  with,  thoughtful  persons  have  come 
to  see  that  death  has  been  overestimated.  Its 
significance  for  man's  spiritual  history  has  oc- 
cupied too  great  a  place  in  thought  and  feeling. 
How  many  earnest  spirits  like  Dr.  Johnson 
have  all  their  lifetime  lived  under  a  dark  cloud 
through  the  fear  that  death  settled  their  moral 
status  in  the  universe  for  all  eternity !  Popular 
thought  conceives  of  death  as  ushering  in  the 
soul  to  the  presence  of  the  Judge  of  all,  there 


62  THE  FUTURE  LIFE 

to  undergo  trial  and  receive  fit  sentence.  Thus 
death  which  is  an  episode  in  the  physical  order, 
a  biological  event,  is  transformed  into  a  spirit- 
ual process,  with  resultant  illusions  and  con- 
fusions both  in  thought  and  life.  Yet  a  little 
reflection  would  show  the  unreality  of  this  way 
of  picturing  the  meaning  of  death.  If  here  and 
now  on  "this  bank  and  shoal  of  time"  I  am  not 
in  the  presence  of  God,  then  nowhere  through- 
out the  entire  cosmos  can  I  ever  find  Him,  or 
feel  His  eye  upon  me.  Five  minutes  after  death 
where  am  I?  From  the  standpoint  of  spiritual 
reality,  precisely  where  I  was  five  minutes  be- 
fore death.  Doubtless  death  as  a  physical 
process,  like  all  other  physical  processes,  affects 
the  life  of  the  spirit,  for  it  implies  that  the 
physical  organism  has  been  dropped,  and  that 
life  is  lived  under  new  conditions.  But  it  is  one 
thing  to  say  this  and  another  and  a  very  dif- 
ferent thing  to  say  that  a  bodily  event  has 
power  to  work  as  by  magic  a  profound  trans- 
formation in  all  man's  spiritual  relationships, 
in  the  very  texture  of  the  soul-life.  This  is  to 
assert  what  cannot  stand  the  scrutiny  of  ethics 
or  of  science.  The  main  significance  of  death 
lies  in  its  power  to  change  our  environment. 
And  when  traditional  theology  passes  beyond 
death  and  tries  to  forecast  the  history  of  the 


HINDRANCES  TO  BELIEF  63 

soul  in  the  after-world,  it  forms  a  scheme  or 
framework  within  which  for  ages  the  hopes 
and  fears  of  men  have  moved,  but  from  which 
the  majority  of  educated  people  today  turn 
away  in  utter  disbelief.  They  cannot  say 
with  Dante  that  the  pillars  of  an  enduring 
Hell  have  been  built  upon  the  love  and  jus- 
tice of  God.  They  do  not  believe  in  eternal 
torture,  that  is,  in  pain  that  has  no  meaning  and 
no  end,  nor  do  they  find  credible,  the  resurrec- 
tion of  the  physical  body,  a  final  Day  of  Judg- 
ment on  which  human  history  will  be  finally 
wound  up,  to  be  followed  by  a  static  Heaven  and 
Hell,  or  a  Purgatory  that  is  at  once  artificial 
and  unethical.  If  the  after-life  is  to  be  worthy 
of  man's  reverent  trust  and  hope,  it  can  only  be 
by  our  applying  to  it  those  moral  categories 
which  have  been  found  to  work  in  our  experi- 
ence here  and  now.  One  of  these  great  forma- 
tive principles  is  that  of  growth.  Man's  person- 
ality is  never  a  finished  article ;  it  is  a  growing 
organism.  Now  to  suppose  that  the  world  be- 
yond the  grave  is  the  scene  of  irrevocable  woe 
or  bliss  in  which  a  man  enters  at  death  is  to 
suppose  something  that  offends  the  moral  sense, 
because  it  contradicts  all  that  which  our  experi- 
ence in  this  world  certifies.  As  Dr.  James  Ward 
remarks :  * '  That  a  man  should  pass  at  once  from 


64  THE  FUTURE  LIFE 

earth  to  heaven  or  hell  seems  irrational  and 
inequitable ;  and  the  lapse  of  ages  of  suspended 
consciousness,  if  this  were  conceivable,  would 
not  diminish  this  discontinuity. ' ' *  Nor  is  the 
official  doctrine  of  Purgatory  in  any  better 
case.  For  this  doctrine  is  not  the  rational  and 
acceptable  view  of  Plato  which  reappears  in 
the  teaching  of  such  men  as  Clement  of  Alex- 
andria and  Origen  that  the  suffering  in  Purga- 
tory is  disciplinary  and  is  profitable  for  the 
correction  of  morally  imperfect  habits  and  for 
the  purification  from  the  stains  contracted 
through  the  defilements  of  this  life;  it  is  the 
irrational  and  unacceptable  theory  that  at  death 
souls  destined  for  Heaven  are  in  the  very  in- 
stant of  death  morally  transformed,  wholly 
turned  away  from  all  evil  and  wholly  given  to 
all  good,  but  pass  into  Purgatory  for  a  space 
to  expiate  in  pain  the  debt  which  they  owe  to 
justice  of  God  for  the  sins  committed  in  their 
fleshly  life.  These  theories  of  popular  religious 
thought,  whether  Roman  or  Protestant,  are  no 
longer  possible  to  cultivated  men,  because  they 
deny  that  the  history  of  the  soul  is  an  organic 
development  in  which  there  is  a  continuity  be- 
tween the  higher  and  the  lower  stages  of  being, 
and  in  which  spiritual  progress  is  inconceivable 

1  The  Realm  of  Ends,  p.  406. 


HINDRANCES  TO  BELIEF  65 

apart  from  decisions  and  choices  of  the  moral 
will.  The  most  clamant  need  at  the  present  time 
in  the  sphere  of  religion  is  a  bold  and  vigorous 
effort  at  reconstructing  the  current  conceptions 
of  the  future  life,  by  sweeping  as  rubbish  to  the 
void  the  pictures  and  fallacies  of  Judaic  imag- 
ination stimulated  by  Pagan  thought,  and  by 
building  a  fresh  and  still  more  compelling  and 
realistic  view  of  man's  destiny  upon  the  teach- 
ing of  Christ  and  of  those  who  stood  nearest 
Him  in  spirit,  and  upon  the  nature  of  man's 
higher  life  as  disclosed  by  modern  reflection. 
And  those  who  reject  belief  in  survival  because 
they  no  longer  expect  to  hear  the  trumpet  blast 
heralding  the  Last  Day,  or  to  see  a  great  white 
throne  with  its  apparitors  of  doom,  or  to  emerge 
from  the  grave  clad  in  a  body  which  they  had 
laid  aside  not  without  some  measure  of  relief, 
may  be  reminded  that  faith  in  immortality  was 
in  possession  ages  before  these  thoughts  entered 
the  human  mind,  and  therefore  can  exist  when 
they  have  passed  into  the  limbo  of  oblivion. 


H.     THE  RISE  AND  INFLUENCE  OF  SCIENTIFIC 
MATERIALISM 

Materialism   or  the   doctrine  that  all  phe- 
nomena,  whether   physical   or   psychical,   are 


66  THE  FUTURE  LIFE 

phenomena  of  matter  in  motion,  has  behind  it 
a  long  history,  going  back  to  the  speculations 
of  the  ancient  Greek  philosophers,  Empedocles 
and  Democritus,  and  finding  its  poet  in  the 
Roman  Lucretius,  whose  motive  in  writing  his 
On  the  Nature  of  Things  was  to  free  men 
from  the  fear  of  Orcus  with  its  eternal  gloom 
and  suffering,  by  showing  that  the  soul,  made 
of  attenuated  matter,  vanished  when  its  constit- 
uent particles  were  dissolved.  In  the  nineteenth 
century  Tyndall  startled  his  contemporaries  by 
his  assertion  that  in  matter  was  to  be  discerned 
"the  promise  and  potency  of  every  form  and 
quality  of  life."  The  history  of  the  universe 
has  been  the  history  of  atoms  in  motion,  and 
within  these  atoms  lie  all  the  forces  that  create 
light,  heat,  electricity,  and  so  forth,  each  being 
convertible  into  the  rest.  Everything  that  has 
come  to  be,  mental  or  physical,  lay  germinally  in 
the  primeval  atom.  The  modern  phase  of  the 
doctrine  substitutes  units  of  electricity  for  the 
hard  atoms  of  the  older  thinkers.  But  this  does 
not  alter  the  essence  of  the  argument.  These 
ultimate  entities  constitute  the  stuff  of  which 
the  universe  is  made.  The  concentration  of  so 
many  brilliant  minds  on  the  physical  sciences, 
and  the  resultant  emphasis  on  the  mechanical 


67 

aspect  of  nature,  combined  with  the  revolution- 
ary doctrine  of  Darwin  which  seemed  to  com- 
plete the  materialistic  argument  by  the  proof 
that  man  has  been  developed  by  an  endless 
number  of  minute  variations  in  virtue  of  the 
law  of  natural  selection  from  his  pre-human 
ancestry,  threatened  to  sweep  the  last  genera- 
tion off  its  feet  and  to  make  materialism  trium- 
phant among  all  educated  people.  But  idealism 
in  a  variety  of  forms  during  the  past  quarter 
of  a  century  has,  it  is  claimed,  turned  the  tide, 
and  on  all  sides  we  are  assured  that  materialism 
is  dead  or  dying,  at  most  dragging  out  a  pre- 
carious existence  in  quarters  innocent  of  philo- 
sophical speculation,  and  ignorant  of  the  real 
situation  in  the  higher  thought  of  our  time.  A 
lecturer  in  connection  with  the  Ethical  Culture 
Movement  has  recently  told  us  that  "no  longer 
is  it  left  to  theology  to  decry  materialism. 
Science  herself  has  sounded  its  death-knell. 
Today  it  is  difficult  to  find  a  genuinely  scien- 
tific champion  of  its  thesis  as  it  was  fifty  years 
ago  to  find  an  opponent. ' '  *  An  Anglican*"  the- 
ologian in  a  book  just  published  assures  us  that 
1 1  materialism  is  a  *  creed  outworn. '  Fifty  years 
ago,  when  physical  science  was  making  such 

1  Faith  in  a  Future  Life,  by  A.  Martin,  p.  44. 


68  THE  FUTURE  LIFE 

rapid  advances,  it  was  fashionable.  Today  it 
has  ceased  to  be  fashionable  and  is  thoroughly 
discredited."  1 

The  writer  of  the  article  on  "Materialism"  in 
Baldwin's  Dictionary  of  Philosophy  and  Psy- 
chology avers  that  "materialism  as  a  dogmatic 
system  hardly  survives  in  philosophical  circles, 
although  in  alliance  with  Secularism  it  is  no 
doubt  influential  among  certain  sections  of  the 
working  classes  and  often  forms  the  creed  of 
the  half-educated  specialist."2  "In  dogmatic 
form,"  writes  Dr.  F.  R.  Tennant,  "materialism 
is  to  be  found  today,  perhaps,  only  in  the  litera- 
ture of  secularist  'free'  thought.  Even  the 
monism  of  E.  Haeckel  which  is  materialism  in 
all  but  name,  awakes  no  enthusiasm  among 
scientific  students  in  Britain,  and  is  rightly  re- 
garded as  involving  an  obsolete  standpoint." 
There  can  be  no  doubt  that  these  writers  are 
serious  thinkers  who  not  only  believe  what  they 
say,  but  have  grounds  for  their  belief.  Yet  it 
is  no  less  certain  that  materialism  was  never 
more  rampant  in  scientific  circles  than  it  is 
today.  It  was  an  ancient  saying  that  when 
three  physicians  met,  two  were  always  found 


1  Christianity  and  Immortality,  by  V.  Storr,  p.  23. 
*  Hastings'    Encyclopedia    of    Religion    and    Ethics.     Art. 
Materialism. 


HINDRANCES  TO  BELIEF  69 

to  be  atheists;  substitute  the  word  "material- 
ists" for  "atheists"  and  you  will  not  be  far 
from  the  truth.  Owing  to  the  ill  odour  now 
attaching  to  materialism  as  though  it  involved 
a  certain  moral  approbrium,  scientific  men  do 
not  care  to  label  themselves  with  the  name,  but 
that  they  are  firmly  persuaded  of  the  doctrine 
and  teach  it  to  the  youth  who  attend  our 
medical  schools  may  be  reckoned  as  certain. 
"Almost  any  of  our  young  psychologists  will 
tell  you,"  says  James,  "that  only  a  few  be- 
lated scholastics  or  possibly  some  crack-brained 
theosophist  or  psychical  researcher  can  be 
found  holding  back,  and  still  talking  as  if  mental 
phenomena  might  exist  as  independent  vari- 
ables in  the  world. ' ' *  But  the  matter  has  been 
recently  put  to  the  test  in  a  genuinely  scien- 
tific style.  Professor  J.  H.  Leuba  sent  out  a 
questionnaire  to  groups  selected  from  pub- 
lished lists  of  American  scientists  and  psy- 
chologists, and  philosophers,  with  a  view  to 
discover  how  far  the  belief  in  God  and  immor- 
tality still  prevailed  among  the  educated  classes, 
more  particularly  in  college  and  university 
circles.  Of  those  who  answered  the  questions 
it  was  found  that  49.4  per  cent.,  among  the 
physical  and  biological  scientists  taken  to- 

1  Human   Immortality^    pp.    9,    10. 


70  THE  FUTURE  LIFE 

gether,  declared  themselves  either  disbelievers 
or  doubters  in  regard  to  belief  in  immortality. 
Of  the  more  eminent  as  distinguished  from  men 
of  lesser  reputation,  only  36.9  proclaimed  them- 
selves believers.  The  biologists  produced  a 
smaller  number  of  believers  than  the  physi- 
cists, 50  per  cent,  being  credited  to  the  former, 
57  per  cent,  to  the  latter.  Of  the  men  of 
greater  standing  among  the  biologists  only 
25  per  cent,  avowed  their  belief  in  a  future 
life.  Another  interesting  and  significant  fact 
emerged.  Whereas  among  the  physicists  and 
biologists  the  number  of  believers  in  immor- 
tality was  substantially  larger  than  that  of  the 
believers  in  God,  among  the  psychologists  the 
number  of  believers  in  immortality  was  clearly 
less  than  that  of  the  believers  in  God,  24  per 
cent,  asserting  their  belief  in  God,  and  19.8  per 
cent,  their  belief  in  immortality.  Among  the 
greater  psychologists  the  number  of  believers 
in  immortality  sinks  to  8.8  per  cent.  Professor 
Leuba  concludes  that  "in  the  present  phase  of 
psychological  science,  the  greater  one's  knowl- 
edge of  psychic  life  the  more  difficult  it  is  to 
retain  the  traditional  belief  in  the  continuation 
of  personality  after  death."  To  put  the  results 
of  the  investigation  briefly,  more  than  half  of 
.all  those  who  replied  to  the  questions  addressed 


HINDRANCES  TO  BELIEF  71 

to  them  and  over  two-thirds  of  the  more  eminent 
of  these  rejected  belief  in  immortality.1  These 
ascertained  facts  prove  that  the  reassuring  ut- 
terances of  men  of  philosophical  distinction  as 
to  the  passing  of  materialism  require  critical 
discrimination.  Inquiry  and  statistical  study 
prove  the  prevalence  of  denial  of  survival  in 
scientific  circles  as  the  result  of  psycho-physio- 
logical knowledge  implying  materialism,  and  yet 
sincere  and  thoughtful  men  assure  us  that  this 
doctrine  is  thoroughly  discredited  except  among 
the  half-educated  and  scientific  amateurs. 

How  is  this  apparent  contradiction  to  be  ex- 
plained? The  answer  is  that  the  term  "ma- 
terialism" is  ambiguous  and  covers  ideas  that 
have  no  intrinsic  connection.  Materialism  as  a 
theory  of  knowledge  has  been  vanquished  by 
idealism  and  may  be  said  to  be  dead,  but 
materialism  as  a  psycho-physiological  solution 
of  the  problem  of  mind  and  brain  was  never 
more  alive  in  scientific  circles  than  it  is  today. 
The  old  doctrine  that  nothing  is  in  mind  except 
what  enters  through  the  senses  was  shown  to 
be  false  by  proving  that  mind  had  powers  which 
the  senses  were  not  adequate  to  explain.  The 

*  The  Belief  in  God  and  Immortality,  by  James  H.  Leuba, 
pp.  173-281.  Dr.  Leuba  was  unable  to  get  any  reliable  results 
from  his  inquiries  in  philosophical  quarters,  as  he  was  unable 
to  formulate  his  questions  in  such  a  way  as  to  get  from  the 
philosophers  clear  answers. 


72  THE  FUTURE  LIFE 

intellect  can  rise  above  the  individual  percep- 
tions and  can  grasp  them  as  an  intelligible 
whole.  Such  an  act  may  well  be  called  '  *  crea- 
tive"— an  act  quite  impossible  to  the  senses. 
Sensationalism,  then,  has  vanished  from  the 
realm  of  debate,  and  in  that  sense  materialism 
has  had  its  day  and  has  ceased  to  be.  But  the 
scientific  materialist  does  not  wince  at  this 
philosophic  victory.  For  he  is  not  concerned 
about  the  nature  of  knowledge ;  such  a  problem 
he  hands  over  to  the  metaphysician.  What  con- 
cerns him  is  to  frame  an  hypothesis,  in  harmony 
with  scientific  method,  which  will  render  intel- 
ligible the  relation  of  mind  to  the  bodily  organ- 
ism. And  this  hypothesis  can  be  expressed  in 
a  sentence — consciousness  is  a  function  of  the 
brain.  It  cannot  be  denied  that  the  normal  facts 
are  on  the  materialistic  side.  Universal  experi- 
ence testifies  that  consciousness  is  always  asso- 
ciated with  a  physical  organism,  weakens  wrhen 
the  organism  weakens,  is  impaired  when  the 
organism  is  impaired,  and  finally  disappears 
when  the  organism  perishes  under  the  stroke  of 
death.  It  is  true  that  the  materialist  cannot 
prove  that  consciousness  is  destroyed  by 
death,  but  why,  he  asks,  should  consciousness 
persist  when  the  other  functions,  the  various 
chemistries  of  the  body,  are  stilled  forever  f 


73 

Now  that  the  full  strength  of  the  negative 
argument  may  appear,  it  may  be  well  to  hear 
what  some  of  its  champions  have  to  say 
in  its  defence.  "If  an  individual  feeling  al- 
ways goes  with  an  individual  nerve-message, 
if  a  combination  or  stream  of  feelings 
always  goes  with  a  stream  of  nerve-messages, 
does  it  not  follow  that  when  the  stream  of 
nerve-messages  is  broken  up,  this  stream  of 
feelings  will  be  broken  up  also,  and  will  no 
longer  form  consciousness?"1  Haeckel  points 
to  the  discovery  that  in  the  grey  matter  of 
the  brain  are  located  not  only  the  seats  of  the 
central  sense-organs,  the  spheres  of  touch, 
smell,  sense,  and  hearing,  but  between  these  the 
great  organs  of  mental  life,  the  highest  instru- 
ments of  psychic  activity  that  produce  thought 
and  consciousness,2  and  throughout  his  discus- 
sion he  assumes  as  not  open  to  dispute  that 
when  this  complex  mechanism  ceases  to  func- 
tion, all  mental  activity  perishes.  That  the 
organization  of  mind  advances  with  even  pace 
along  with  the  organization  of  brain,  is  the 
merest  commonplace.  The  fortunes  of  mind 
and  brain  are  so  interwoven  at  every  moment 
that  to  the  scientific  observer  it  is  incredible  to 

1  Clifford,  Essays  and  Lectures,  Vol.  I,  pp.  247-249. 
*  Riddle  of  the  Universe,  p.  65. 


74  THE  FUTURE  LIFE 

suppose  the  escape  of  consciousness  from  the 
shattered  elements  of  the  physical  organ.  The 
general  thesis  of  the  mind's  dependence  on  the 
body  is  buttressed  in  detail  by  the  researches  of 
the  physiologist  and  the  psychologist.  "The 
phenomena  of  consciousness  correspond,  ele- 
ment for  element,  to  the  operations  of  special 
parts  of  the  brain.  .  .  .  The  destruction  of  any 
piece  of  the  apparatus  involves  the  loss  of  some 
one  or  other  of  the  vital  operations;  and  the 
consequence  is  that  as  far  as  life 'extends,  we 
have  before  us  only  an  organic  function,  with  a 
Ding -an- sick,  or  an  expression  of  that  imagi- 
nary entity,  the  soul.  The  fundamental  propo- 
sition .  .  .  carries  with  it  the  denial  of  the 
immortality  of  the  soul. ' ' 1 

Now  the  point  to  be  emphasized  is  that  the 
brain  is  a  highly  complex  structure  in  which  a 
vast  number  of  molecules  are  worked  up  into 
cells  with  all  their  marvellous  ramifications, 
that  with  the  break-up  of  this  composite  struc- 
ture mind  no  longer  exists.  Consciousness  ap- 
pears with  a  physical  complex  called  brain  and 
is  never  known  to  function  apart  from  it.  Must 
not  consciousness  disappear  when  this  complex 
is  dissolved?  As  John  Fiske  writes :  "We  have 

1  G.  E.  DUhring,  quoted  by  W.  James,  Human  Immortality, 
p.   50. 


HINDRANCES  TO  BELIEF  75 

no  more  warrant  in  experience  for  supposing 
consciousness  to  exist  without  a  nervous  system 
than  we  have  for  supposing  the  properties  of 
water  to  exist  in  a  world  destitute  of  hydrogen 
and  oxygen. '  * 1 

It  must  be  confessed  that  the  answers  made 
to  this  contention  are  far  from  satisfactory. 
The  familiar  argument  of  idealism,  that  mat- 
ter is  not  an  independent  something  prior 
to  thought,  but  is  real  only  in  so  far  as 
it  appears  to  mind,  so  that,  if  you  abstract 
mind  from  matter,  matter  ceases  to  be — 
this  argument  appears  to  the  scientific  ma- 
terialist to  be  a  mere  metaphysical  puzzle  or 
quibble,  and  he  takes  his  stand  on  the  principle 
that  for  practical  purposes  reality  is  directly 
perceived.  The  idealist's  reasoning  seems  an 
airy  nothing  when  confronted  with  the  world  of 
objective  facts.  Hence,  to  meet  the  new  situa- 
tion the  materialist  is  pointed  to  the  elements  of 
mental  and  moral  experience.  No  physical 
facts,  it  is  maintained,  can  explain  moral  values 
and  ideals.  The  higher  the  stage  in  human 
evolution  the  more  clearly  appear  in  experience 
principles  which  imply  that  man  has  other  and 
more  vital  interests  than  the  maintenance  of  his 
physical  existence.  As  a  rational,  self-conscious 

1  Everlasting  Life,  p.  55. 


76  THE  FUTURE  LIFE 

being,  the  shaper  of  his  destiny,  and  the  focus, 
so  to  say,  of  values  that  cannot  be  measured  by 
any  material  standard,  man  stands  outside  the 
realm  of  mechanical  necessity,  and  is  not  ex- 
plicable in  terms  of  brain  molecules  and  nerve 
elements.  This  argument  has  been  set  forth 
with  impressive  eloquence  and  powerful  dia- 
lectic in  the  writings  of  Professor  Ward  and 
Professor  Pringle-Pattison.  But  much  as  it 
appeals  to  the  student  of  ethics  and  philosophy, 
it  fails  to  persuade  the  scientific  materialist. 
For  the  demand  of  the  student  of  physiology  is 
for  facts,  observed  phenomena  which  may  com- 
pel him  to  modify  his  thesis  of  the  mind's  func- 
tional dependence  on  the  body.  In  the  absence 
of  these  facts,  his  hypothesis  holds  the  ground, 
and  no  assertion  of  man's  moral  and  spiritual 
dignity  will  avail.  But  the  curious  and  startling 
feature  of  the  present  situation  is  that  the 
idealist  acts  as  if  he  suspected  that  he  had 
achieved  only  a  dubious  victory  over  his  an- 
tagonist. For,  of  course,  materialism  denies 
immortality,  and  if  idealism  had  really  inflicted 
ruinous  defeat  on  its  antagonist,  would  not  the 
idealist  joyously  proclaim  to  the  world  the  fact 
of  survival,  and  bid  all  men  rejoice  with  him  in 
the  sure  and  certain  hope  that  death  is  not  the 
end  ?  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  idealist  draws  no 


HINDRANCES  TO  BELIEF          77 

such  inference  in  the  great  majority  of  cases. 
On  the  contrary,  he  warns  us  that  undue  em- 
phasis on  a  future  life  augurs  an  unhealthy 
spiritual  temperament;  that,  at  best,  the  belief 
is  secondary  and  inferential,  and  might  even 
disappear,  leaving  all  ethical  and  religious  in- 
terests unaffected!  The  scientific  materialist 
may  well  smile  as  he  sees  the  impasse  in  which 
the  philosopher  finds  himself,  and  he  goes  on  his 
way,  more  than  ever  convinced  that  philosophy 
is  a  will-o'-the-wisp,  and  that  for  him  the  path 
of  wisdom  is  that  of  observed  fact,  and  induc- 
tive method. 

Out  of  this  deadlock  there  is  only  one  way. 
It  is  to  refute  the  materialist  by  giving  him 
what  he  professes  to  crave,  that  is  to  say,  facts 
open  to  observation  and  experiment,  just  like 
the  other  facts  which  have  created  his  negation. 
These  facts  are  phenomena  which  go  to  prove 
that  consciousness  can  function  apart  from  the 
brain.  For  men  of  unscientific  temper  or  of 
sternly  ethical  and  religious  instincts,  such  a 
proof  may  not  be  necessary,  though,  perhaps, 
desirable,  but  for  the  man  who  devotes  his  life 
to  the  study  of  brain  states  and  corresponding 
mental  states,  in  health  and  disease,  facts  alone 
have  coercive  power.  Doubts  created  by  science 
can  be  solved  only  by  science.  Hence  to  this 


78  THE  FUTURE  LIFE 

extent  the  problem  of  immortality  is  now  a 
scientific  one,  and  psychical  research  appears  to 
be  the  only  serious  effort  to  face  the  situation. 
Only  by  the  slow  and  tedious  accumulation  of 
facts  tending  to  show  that  mind  works  inde- 
pendently of  the  physical  organism,  can  the 
scientific  materialist  be  met  on  his  own  ground, 
and  be  compelled  to  surrender.  It  is  highly 
significant  that  the  latest  defender 1  of  the  ma- 
terialistic denial  of  immortality  admits  the 
reality  of  the  phenomena  of  psychic  research, 
but  refers  them  to  telepathic  communication  be- 
tween living  persons,  apparently  forgetting  that 
this  is  to  explain  the  obscure  by  the  more  ob- 
scure. Nevertheless  the  admission  is  interest- 
ing ;  it  is  likely  to  prove  the  first  rift  in  the  rock- 
ribbed  dogmatism  of  modern  materialism. 

III.     THE  INFLUENCE  OF  MODERN  SOCIALISM 

Perhaps  no  movement  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury has  been  more  potent  in  the  life  of  vast 
masses  of  men  than  the  rise  and  spread  of 
socialism.  Its  most  logical  form  is  that  of 
scientific  socialism  as  expounded  by  Karl  Marx. 
To  the  strict  Marxian,  socialism  is  not  merely 
an  economic  doctrine ;  it  is  a  philosophy  of  life 
and  all  its  relationships.  Speaking  at  the  grave 

1  E.  S.  P.  Haynes  in  Belief  in  Immortality. 


HINDRANCES  TO  BELIEF  79 

of  Marx,  his  friend  and  co-worker,  Engels,  ex- 
plained the  Marxian  "materialistic  .conception 
of  history"  to  mean  that  the  given  "stage  of 
economic  evolution  of  a  nation  or  epoch  forms 
the  foundation  from  which  the  civil  institutions 
of  the  people  in  question,  their  ideas  of  law,  of 
art,  of  religion  even,  have  been  developed  and 
according  to  which  they  are  to  be  explained — 
and  not  the  reverse,  as  has  been  done  hitherto." 
Strict  Marxians,  therefore,  reject  belief  in  im- 
mortality on  the  ground  that  it  is  merely  a 
reflection  of  the  economic  situation  of  the  people 
among  whom  it  appears.  With  the  establish- 
ment of  the  socialistic  Utopia,  the  idea  will 
wholly  vanish.  To  be  sure,  all  socialists  are 
not  out-and-out  Marxians.  Indeed  the  average 
socialist,  strange  to  say,  is  an  unmitigated  in- 
dividualist in  religion,  holding  apparently  that 
while  all  other  human  motives  and  institutions 
are  capable  of  being  socialized,  the  deepest 
motive  of  all  has  no  sociological  function  what- 
ever !  Unquestionably,  the  general  trend  of  the 
movement  has  been  to  conceive  of  man  too  much 
as  an  economic,  money-grabbing,  food-getting 
animal.  The  wage-earner  is  engaged  in  the 
struggle  for  an  existence.  To  him  the  things  of 
pressing  moment  are  food,  clothing,  shelter, 
houses,  land.  Socialism  has  shown  him  that 


80  THE  FUTURE  LIFE 

these  things  depend  on  far-reaching  interna- 
tional and  financial  conditions.  In  opposition  to 
the  teaching  of  many  religious  bodies  that  the 
supreme  concern  is  the  salvation  of  the  soul, 
which  is  quite  independent  of  material  condi- 
tions, socialism  tends  to  the  other  extreme  and 
so  emphasizes  the  improvement  of  external  con- 
ditions as  to  obscure  the  inner  meaning  of  man's 
being,  his  power  to  transcend  circumstance,  "to 
live  a  life  beyond,  to  have  a  hope  to  die  with 
dim-descried."  The  life  beyond  the  grave  can 
offer  no  economic  return;  therefore,  it  must  be 
denied  or  relegated  to  the  realm  of  the  negli- 
gible. "When  we  have  attained  the  good  things 
of  this  world,"  as  Goethe  observed,  "it  is  so 
easy  to  regard  those  of  the  next  as  a  delusion 
and  a  snare."  Moreover,  the  struggle  for  a 
redistribution  of  earthly  goods  and  for  a  larger 
opportunity  to  get  out  of  the  present  world  what 
is  in  it,  is  so  absorbing  and  exciting  that  any 
interest  in  the  supersensuous  realm  distracts 
the  attention  from  the  real  things,  the  solid  and 
substantial  realities  of  economics.  In  other 
words,  as  has  been  well  said,  "man  is  to  be  no 
longer,  even  in  his  holiday  dreamings,  an  am- 
phibious creature,  longing  somehow  for  the 
boundless  ocean,  but  he  is  to  be  simply  and 
exclusively  a  land-animal,  a  creature  of  earth 


HINDRANCES  TO  BELIEF  81 

alone."  The  economic  interests  of  the  pro- 
letariat loom  so  large  as  to  eclipse  the  vision 
of  another  world.  Moreover,  socialism  offers 
itself  as  a  substitute  for  the  religion  with  which 
so  many  of  the  wage-earning  class  have  broken 
in  our  time.  It  holds  up  the  ideal  of  a  social- 
istic state  as  an  object  worthy  of  reverence, 
commanding  the  utter  devotion  of  our  lives  and 
the  suppression  of  all  other  desires  and  ambi- 
tions. Now,  as  belief  in  immortality  has  become 
an  essential  element  in  religion  as  Western 
peoples  know  it,  it  is  obvious  that  the  growth 
of  the  socialistic  idea  has  been  hostile  to  its  hold 
on  large  classes  of  the  industrial  populations  of 
the  world. 

The  remedy  lies  in  a  twofold  direction.  The 
believer  in  immortality  must  show  that  his  faith 
is  not  only  compatible  with  but  essential  to  a 
genuine  reverence  for  whatever  bears  on  man 's 
best  life.  And  he  must  prove  his  faith  by  prov- 
ing his  interest  in  the  material  well-being,  the 
readjustment  of  social  conditions,  the  provision 
of  a  larger  economic  and  educational  oppor- 
tunity for  the  unprivileged  masses.  Any  pre- 
occupation with  the  other  world  which  curtails 
our  interest  in  establishing  the  Kingdom  of  God 
wherein  each  shall  work  according  to  his  ability, 
and  to  each  shall  be  given  according  to  his 


82  THE  FUTURE  LIFE 

needs,  will  in  the  long  run  react  harmfully  on 
our  conviction  that  not  here  but  beyond  must 
the  destiny  of  man  find  its  consummation. 

And,  on  the  other  hand,  the  socialist  must  be 
led  to  see  that  the  implications  of  his  creed  are 
deeper  than  he  suspects.  No  programme  of 
economic  reform,  no  acceleration  of  material- 
istic dreams,  can  satisfy  the  spiritual  ambitions 
of  the  human  spirit  that  has  once  realized  the 
import  of  liberty,  equality,  brotherhood,  and 
caught  a  glimpse  of  the  new  world  wherein 
dwelleth  righteousness.  Such  a  belief  is  really 
mystical  in  character.  For  man  is  now  seen  to 
belong  to  a  grander  order  than  that  of  earth ;  he 
is  the  focus  of  eternal  values;  he  escapes  our 
economic  categories  and  stands  forth  in  his  true 
being  as  the  citizen  of  a  transcendent  world 
who  here  and  now  is  passing  through  a  prepara- 
tory discipline  and  after  each  task  is  done,  is 
haunted  by  a  divine  unrest  that  urges  him  on  to 
find  his  goal  beyond  the  limitations  of  his  ter- 
restrial lot.  It  is  paradoxical  but  true  that  the 
more  super-earthly  man  appears  to  be,  the  more 
sacred  become  all  his  temporal  interests  and 
strivings. 


CHAPTER  V 

THE    MORAL   ARGUMENT 

THE  argument  which  we  are  now  about  to  dis- 
cuss has,  perhaps,  more  than  any  other,  made 
widespread  and  permanent  appeal.  When  all 
other  reasonings  have  proved  but  broken  reeds, 
the  argument  based  on  the  nature  of  man  as  a 
moral  being  has  afforded  a  rational  foundation 
from  which  faith  might  make  its  venture.  It 
has  also  the  singular  merit  of  being  the  one 
argument  on  which  such  a  speculative  genius  as 
Immanuel  Kant  was  willing  to  stake  the  eternal 
hopes  of  humanity.  The  form,  indeed,  in  which 
he  propounded  it  is  no  longer  acceptable;  it 
shares  in  the  doctrinaire  and  abstract  quality  of 
eighteenth  century  thought.  "From  the  moral 
law  implied  in  the  practical  reason,"  says  Kant, 
"comes  a  demand  for  an  ultimate  harmony  be- 
tween happiness  and  virtue ;  but  this  harmony 
is  unattainable  in  this  life,  owing  to  man's 
fleshly  weakness,  therefore  there  must  be  a  life 
after  death  where  man  may  find  an  opportunity 
for  the  achievement  of  his  endless  task." 


84  THE  FUTURE  LIFE 

Translate  this  into  modern  language  and  it 
means  that  nature  imposes  on  every  man  the 
duty  of  realizing  the  ideal  of  his  life,  but  this 
ideal  is  really  infinite  in  scope.  The  more  it  is 
pursued,  the  further  it  seems  to  fly  before  us. 
It  is  an  everlasting  task  to  which  man  by  the 
very  constitution  of  his  being  is  committed. 
Now  a  universe  in  which  the  moral  ideal  sets 
up  such  a  claim  must  give  sufficient  space  for 
man  to  fulfil  it  in  a  world  perfectly  harmonious 
with  it.  Such  an  opportunity  is  denied  the 
servant  of  the  ideal  if  death  ends  all.  It  is, 
therefore,  an  ethical  necessity  that  death,  so  far 
from  ending  all,  should  prove  a  pathway  into 
a  more  abundant,  completer,  and  richer  life. 
When  certain  dubious  elements  which  have 
been  associated  with  the  argument  have  been 
cleared  away,  it  can  be  stated  in  a  form  which 
still  carries  a  large  measure  of  conviction  to 
those  possessed  of  healthy  ethical  instincts. 
Too  often  an  undue  emphasis  has  been  placed 
on  future  rewards  and  punishments,  as  though 
virtue  were  a  sort  of  prudential  insurance 
against  the  possibilities  of  woe  in  a  future 
world.  Nowadays,  we  have  come  to  see  that 
a  good  life  is  intrinsically  good  and  an  evil  life 
is  intrinsically  evil  apart  from  any  consequences 
whatever ;  and  we  are  called  to  realize  goodness 


THE  MORAL  ARGUMENT  85 

in  thought  and  conduct  without  an  eye  to  any 
ulterior  benefits.  Of  two  men,  one  who  avoids 
evil  from  fear  of  consequences  or  hope  of  re- 
ward is,  we  feel,  inferior  morally  to  him  who 
says,  "I  will  do  what  is  right  because  my  con- 
science and  reason  tell  me  it  is  right,  and  I  will 
do  it  without  regard  to  any  external  reward 
whatever  because  the  very  doing  of  it  satisfies 
my  nature,"  Five  centuries  before  Christ,  a 
great  Oriental  teacher  proclaimed  the  necessity 
of  renouncing  the  idea  of  performing  right 
deeds  from  the  motive  of  winning  heaven  and 
avoiding  hell,  if  one  were  to  be  really  virtuous. 
It  is  to  be  feared  that  there  are  multitudes  that 
have  not  as  yet  learned  the  lesson  of  the  ancient 
sage. 

Moreover,  the  theory  which  would  divide  the 
moral  life  into  two  sections,  the  first  of  which 
is  the  performance  of  moral  actions  in  the  pres- 
ent world,  and  the  second  the  obtaining  of 
rewards  in  the  world  to  come  in  return  for 
these  actions,  must  give  way  to  the  deeper  view 
that  the  present  life  and  the  future  life  are  one. 
The  results  of  our  actions  here  and  now  are 
realized.  The  sinner  in  the  very  act  of  violating 
his  own  nature  automatically  inflicts  grievous 
loss  upon  himself;  a  good  man  in  the  very  act 
of  obeying  conscience  and  reason  is  gaining 


86  THE  FUTURE  LIFE 

enlargement  of  being,  a  stronger  and  richer 
personality. 

And  yet  at  the  root  of  the  popular  idea  is  a 
truth  with  which  we  cannot  dispense.  It  is  this 
— if  goodness  is  to  claim  our  wholehearted  devo- 
tion, even  to  the  length  of  our  being  willing  in 
its  interest  to  sacrifice  the  physical  life,  the  de- 
mand of  the  soul  is  that  goodness  must  be 
worth  while.  What  rational  ground  for  a  truly 
moral  action  could  there  be,  if  its  fruition  in 
an  enhanced  personality  with  all  its  further 
possibilities  were  at  the  mercy  of  an  external 
and  alien  power  such  as  death?  Motives  of 
prudence  or  utilitarian  considerations  would 
still  be  possible,  but  the  prudential  and  the  truly 
moral  are  poles  asunder.  Tennyson  has  gone 
to  the  heart  of  the  matter  when  he  says  of 
virtue: 

"She  desires  no  isles  of  the  blest,  no  quiet  seats  of 

the  just, 
To  rest  in  a  golden  grove,  or  to  bask  in  a  summer 


Give  her  the  wages  of  going  on,  and  not  to  die." 

The  true  motives  which  enter  into  and 
spiritualize  a  longing  for  a  future  life  are,  as 
has  been  well  said, '  *  that  personal  affection  may 


THE  MOKAL  ARGUMENT  87 

continue  and  that  moral  goodness  may  grow." 
However  many  be  the  links  that  bind  man  to 
the  lower  creation,  there  is  one  quality  which 
lifts  him  out  of  the  animal  world  and  puts  him 
in  a  category  by  himself.  It  is  his  power  to 
form  and  cherish  ideals.  These  ideals,  though 
ever  changing,  are  also  permanent ;  they  are  the 
shaping  and  determining  forces  of  life.  But  if 
the  limits  set  by  man's  earthly  fate  arrest  his 
progress,  death  falls  as  a  blight  on  all  the 
promise  of  his  nature.  For  the  full  unfolding 
of  his  powers  he  needs  a  world  of  larger  scope 
than  this.  What  kind  of  a  universe  would  it  be 
if  such  an  opportunity  were  denied?  Would  it 
be  possible  to  acquit  it  ofjjruelty  and  injustice? 
Hence,  before  we  ask,^s  man  immortal?  it  is 
necessary  to  ask,  What  is  man?  Is  he  a  merely 
natural  phenomenon  to  be  identified  with  the 
sum-total  of  his  natural  impulses?  If  so,  the 
verdict  against  survival  is  already  given.  If 
man  is  inextricably  implicated  in  the  life  of 
nature,  he  shares  the  destiny  of  nature?)  But  the 
analysis  of  the  human  spirit  discloses  the  pres- 
ence of  powers  and  capacities  which  have  no 
meaning  for  man  conceived  simply  as  a  member 
of  a  biological  series;  the  roots  of  his  being 
strike  deep  into  a  spiritual  and  transcendental 
world.  If  man  is  only  a  terrestrial  being 


88  THE  FUTURE  LIFE 

whose  history  is  confined  to  threescore  years 
and  ten,  why  all  those  gifts  and  aptitudes, 
those  ideal-forming  powers  by  which  he  tran- 
scends these  limits,  in  virtue  of  which  he  can 
resurrect  the  buried  past  or  lay  the  founda- 
tions upon  which  to  build  the  fabric  of  the 
future!  There  is  no  relation  between  his  short 
earthly  history  and  the  magnificence  of  his 
mental  and  moral  endowments.  The  ideal  set 
before  him  is  the  perfection  of  all  his  powers, 
the  realization  of  his  true  selfhood,  and  this 
ideal  demands  fulfilment.  As  he  progresses 
in  experience  and  the  good  for  which  he  strives 
ceases  to  be  material,  it  takes  the  form  more 
and  more  of  a  spiritual  self.  This  idealism  is 
not  an  accident^  it  belongs  to  the  inmost  essence 
of  his  being.  (From  this  point  of  view  we  can 
see  that  man  does  not  need  to  wait  for  death, 
in  order  to  be  ushered  into  the  immortal  life. 
He  is  already  a  citizen  of  an  eternal  world  and 
his  every  act  is  the  act  of  a  person  to  whom 
death  is  an  irrelevance!) 

Now  here  is  the  strange  paradox;  this  "finite- 
infinite"  being  is  set  in  a  world  which  hedges 
him  in  on  every  side,  mocks  at  his  enthusiasm, 
and  pours  contempt  on  all  the  flights  of  his 
idealizing  imagination.  Hence  the  tragic  pathos 
of  human  existence.  Man  is  beset  behind  and 


/ 


89 

before  by  forces  that  deny  the  possibility  of 
realization  of  his  ideals.  Consider  the  fact  that 
about  one-sixth  of  all  who  are  born  die  before 
reason  begins  to  unfold  itself.  Think  of  it,  that 
myriads  start  life  already  handicapped  in  body 
or  in  mind,  or  in  both  ;  that  even  the  few  who 
have  every  gift  that  nature  and  heredity  and 
circumstance  can  bestow  are  yet  at  the  mercy  of 
a  thousand  adverse  influences  and  know  well 
that  they  have  scarcely  learned  the  first  neces- 
sary lessons  before  their  time  is  up  and  they 
pass,  leaving  behind  them  only  hints  of  what 
they  might  have  done.  "Man  goes  to  his 
grave,"  says  Bossuet,  "dragging  the  chain  of 
his  broken  hopes."  Has  not  our  own  time 
brought  home  to  us  this  thought  as  never  be- 
fore? Think  of  the  millions  of  youths  cut  off 
in  the  springtime  of  their  lives,  having  scarcely 
had  time  to  do  more  than  reveal  the  presence  of 
capacity,  the  promise  of  what  might  have  been. 
The  fragmentariness  of  life,  its  tragic  inade- 
quacy to  meet  the  most  clamant  needs  of  the 
soul,  the  fact  that  our  most  precious  possessions 
are  at  the  mercy  of  the  accidental  and  the  un- 
preventable  —  all  this  has  no  meaning  except  in 
the  light  of  man's  persistent  conviction  that  he 
belongs  by  nature  to  another  world;  that  this 
other  world  is  his  true  home  and  destiny. 


90  THE  FUTURE  LIFE 

From  another  point  of  view,  we  are  led  to  the 
same  conclusion.  The  only  ideal  worthy  of  man 
as  a  rational  being  is  the  ideal  of  moral  perfec- 
tion. He  is  committed  by  the  necessities  of  his 
nature  to  a  struggle — a  struggle  in  very  truth 
for  his  soul.  But  his  striving  is  never  finished ; 
it  is  an  endless  process.  As  a  given  duty  is 
performed,  as  an  inspiration  born  of  insight  is 
realized  in  practice,  new  obligations  are  laid 
upon  the  will,  nay,  the  more  we  advance  in 
spiritual  experience  the  more  clearly  we  see  the 
chasm  between  the  ideal  and  the  fulfilment.  A 
St.  Paul  can  cry  out,  "0  wretched  man  that  I 
am!  who  shall  deliver  me?"  And  again,  "Not 
as  though  I  had  already  attained,  either  were 
already  perfect,  but  I  follow  on." 

In  every  man  there  are  two  selves — a  better 
and  a  worse.  The  worse  self  is  created  out  of 
instinct  and  sense,  the  better  self  out  of  intellect 
and  moral  will.  It  is  the  duty  of  every  man  to 
make  the  former  subservient  to  the  latter,  to 
find  in  intellectual  and  moral  activity  the  true 
sphere  of  his  desires  and  aspirations,  but  this 
task  is  infinite.  How  is  he  to  achieve  it,  if  the 
limits  of  his  earthly  lot  mark  all  the  time  at  his 
disposal?  And  if  he  does  not  achieve  it,  is  there 
a  sadder  tragedy  imaginable?  Everywhere  else 
in  the  organic  realm,  there  is  a  proportion  be- 


V 

THE  MORAL  ARGUMENT  91 

tween  a  creature's  capacities  and  the  scope  of 
its  life.  Why  is  man  doomed  to  incompleteness? 
It  has  been  said,  indeed,  that  if  one  took  a  fair 
and  dispassionate  view  of  one's  moral  short- 
comings, the  thought  of  another  life  wherein 
these  would  reappear  might  seem  far  from  a 
thing  to  be  desired.  In  order  to  disenchant 
man  of  the  hopes  of  a  future  after  death, 
writers  have  painted  him  in  colours  drawn  from 
the  weaker  and  baser  side  of  his  history  and  yet 
man  feels  that  there  is  a  residual  capacity,  a 
reserve  of  moral  force,  if  only  it  could  be  set 
free,  strong  to  regenerate,  to  build  anew  the  city 
of  his  dreams.  Who  has  not  heard  the  pathetic 
cry  of  many  a  sorrowful  spirit,  "If  I  had  my 
life  to  live  over  again,  what  a  different  man  I 
would  be?"  What  if  it  should  turn  out  that 
beyond  death  there  awaits  us  a  new  opportunity 
in  another  environment  to  make  good  the  fail- 
ures which  here  we  deplore? 

When  we  turn  to  the  affectional  side  of 
human  nature,  we  find  in  harmony  with  the 
greater  poets  of  all  time  a  principle  which  is 
ultimate  and  for  the  satisfaction  of  which  only 
a  boundless  future  seems  adequate.  It  is  the 
principle  of  love.  This  feeling  alone  gives  value 
to  life's  experiences.  But  the  very  essence  of 
love  lies  in  personal  relationships.  Now  death 


92  THE  FUTURE  LIFE 

puts  an  end  to  these  relationships.  What  then 
becomes  of  love  and  what  of  the  worth  of  life 
dependent  on  love?  It  may  be  said  that  if  death 
takes  one  friend,  life  can  give  us  another.  But 
where  love  has  been  truly  spiritual,  implying  the 
deepest  and  most  vital  communion,  nothing  can 
take  its  place.  Love  is  not  transferable ;  it  finds 
in  the  being  loved  a  uniqueness,  an  individual- 
ity, a  something  that  cannot  be  transcended  by 
any  other  object  or  being.  "The  whole  conduct 
of  men,"  writes  Professor  Coe,  "shows  that 
the  personal-social  relationships  that  they  most 
value  they  do  desire  to  continue.  One  does  not 
willingly  lose  friend  A,  even  if  one  is  convinced 
that  an  equally  good  friend  B  is  ready  to  take 
A's  place.  Love  individualizes  the  object  to 
which  it  attaches  itself,  so  that  something  of  the 
value  is  lost  if  the  individual  perishes."1  If 
death  brings  final  destruction  of  personal  rela- 
tionships, then  love,  using  the  word  in  its 
highest  sense,  makes  demands  and  by  its  very 
nature  sets  up  claims  which  are  incompatible 
with  the  necessities  of  our  earthly  lot. 

And  here  it  may  be  worth  while  to  point  out 
that  if  men  value  mainly  the  other  life  because 
of  the  possibility  it  offers  for  the  renewal  of 
those  social  relationships  which  death  dissolves, 

1  The  Psychology  of  Religion,  p.  295. 


THE  MORAL  ARGUMENT  93 

we  must  reverse  the  popular  judgment  as  to  the 
relative  superiority  of  the  pursuit  of  knowledge 
over  the  activity  of  the  affections.  To  know  the 
world  without  and  the  world  within  is  a  noble 
ambition,  but  to  love  our  brothers  is  still  nobler. 
We  are  justified  in  asserting  that  the  full  possi- 
bilities of  man's  nature  can  be  realized  only  in 
proportion  as  he  enters  into  the  joys  and  re- 
sponsibilities of  an  associated  life.  The  history 
of  the  past,  the  long  story  of  the  development 
of  civilization  confirms  the  judgment  expressed 
by  man  in  his  desire,  because  of  social  reasons, 
for  immortality,  and  both  assert  that  the  highest 
act  of  man  is  to  love  and  serve  his  fellows.  It 
is  needless  to  add  that  this  idea  is  revolution- 
ary in  character.  Once  it  is  realized  all  our 
social  problems  are  solved.  Classism  arid 
pseudo-nationalism  and  war  vanish  from  the 
earth  and  a  pure  democracy  is  at  last  set  up 
among  men. 

It  will  be  found  that  as  a  rule  men  of  strong 
ethical  instincts  cherish  the  conviction  that 
somehow  beyond  death  an  opportunity  will  be 
given  them  to  go  on  with  the  work  of  soul- 
making,  of  realizing  possibilities  which  here  on 
earth  have  only  begun  to  reveal  themselves. 
This  unconquerable  intuition  or  feeling  seizes 
those  who  have  surrendered  to  the  spell  of  the 


94  THE  FUTURE  LIFE 

ideal,  who  strive  after  spiritual  perfection.  But 
this  ideal  can  never  be  satisfied.  As  the  years 
pass,  it  grows  wider  and  wider  and  death  steps 
in  to  arrest  the  soul's  upward  progress  and  ap- 
parently to  put  to  confusion  all  its  endeavour. 
If  the  universe  is  more  than  a  soulless  machine 
grinding  out  life  and  death  with  grim  indif- 
ference, if  it  is  at  heart  moral,  we  must  believe 
that  its  highest  creature  and  revealer — man — 
will  have  the  chance  to  pursue  his  spiritual  task, 
to  work  out  his  destiny,  to  achieve  the  end  for 
which  nature  designed  him.  Every  one  who  has 
entered  on  the  higher  life  knows  that  all  the 
moral  phenomena  which  he  has  as  yet  produced 
have  failed  to  exhaust  his  capacities  or  to 
express  fully  his  personality.  There  are  depths 
within  depths,  dormant  energies  which  even  in 
this  life,  under  fit  stimulus,  at  times  awake 
and  with  revolutionary  violence  transform 
thought,  affection,  desire.  "Within  every 
man's  thought,"  says  Emerson,  "is  a  higher 
thought ;  within  the  character  he  exhibits  today, 
a  higher  character."  /^And  if  man's  nature  is 
thus  a  constant  process  of  evolution,  shall  death 
stay  the  onward  march  of  the  spirit  and  pro- 
claim the  mastery  of  matter  over  all  moral 
values?  If  so,  we  must  believe  that  we  are 
living  in  a  universe  governed  by  unreason. 


THE  MORAL  ARGUMENT  95 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  argument  out- 
lined above  has  considerable  weight  and  must 
command  the  sympathy  of  all  who  reflect  upon 
the  meaning  and  purpose  of  life.  Our  deepest 
experience  is  our  moral  experience.  In  it  we 
must  believe  there  is  a  revelation  of  ultimate 
truth  and  this  experience  demands  a  future  life 
as  its  necessary  presupposition.  Yet  it  must  be 
confessed  that  the  argument  labours  under  some 
weaknesses  which  impair  its  value  as  a  demon- 
stration. Clearly  it  rests  on  a  philosophical 
faith — the  faith  that  at  bottom  the  universe  is 
a  rational  whole  based  throughout  on  ethical 
principles  which  we  can  read  for  ourselves. 
Else  there  is  no  guarantee  that  the  moral  de- 
mand of  man's  nature  will  be  satisfied.  But 
this  faith  in  essential  morality  of  the  universe 
seems  to  rest  upon  another  faith — faith  in  God, 
the  Eternal  Ground  of  all  existence,  Whose 
moral  perfections  are  to  be  discerned  in  nature 
and  humanity.  Then  comes  the  doubt  whether 
the  world  as  we  know  it  presents  a  scene  where 
only  benevolence,  love,  goodness,  and  the  vari- 
ous attributes  that  we  call  divine  may  be  seen, 
and  thus  the  foundation  of  our  argument  seems 
infected  with  a  misgiving.  It  may  be  true  that 
"He  who  has  seen  the  sea  and  the  blue  of 
heaven  and  the  moon  and  the  stars,  who  has 


96  THE  FUTURE  LIFE 

climbed  a  mountain,  who  has  heard  a  bird  in 
the  woods,  who  has  known  a  mother — he  will 
bow  his  knee  and  thank  his  God  and  call  life 
good,  even  though  his  lot  in  the  end  be  nothing- 
ness;" x  yet  we  cannot  forbear  asking:  what  of 
the  multitudes  who  have  never  known  these 
aesthetic  and  social  joys,  who  have  never  tasted 
of  happiness  but  who  have  drunk  to  the  dregs 
the  cup  of  misery  all  through  the  weary  years  ? 
Will  you  tell  these  to  bow  the  knee  and  offer  a 
prayer  of  thanks  to  the  Power  that  has  placed 
them  here,  if  this  be  the  full  portion  assigned 
them?  It  may  well  be  that  in  order  to  vindicate 
the  universe  as  rational,  or,  in  religious  terms, 
to  justify  God  at  the  bar  of  human  intelligence 
as  perfectly  good,  we  must  first  of  all  prove  im- 
mortality. A  new  world  must  be  called  in  to 
redress  the  balance  of  the  old. 

But  there  is  another  and  a  still  more  serious 
drawback;  our  reasoning  here  is  based  on  the 
belief  that  the  universe  will  preserve  what  is 
valuable,  all  else  being  cast  on  the  dust  heap. 
This  argument  is  strong  as  applied  to  the  case 
of  all  who  have  entered  upon  the  higher  life  and 
who  have  begun  to  taste  some  of  its  experiences. 

*J.  H.  Stirling,  quoted  by  A.  S.  Pringle-Pattison  in  The 
Idea  of  Qod,  p.  45. 


THE  MORAL  ARGUMENT  97 

These  may  well  claim  the  right  of  continuance 
as  elements  of  value  in  the  moral  world.  But 
what  of  those  who  have  never  risen  one  step 
above  the  animal  life?  What  of  the  depraved, 
flung  into  a  world  that  owns  them  not,  the  chil- 
dren of  a  base  heredity  reared  in  filthy  sur- 
roundings, breathing  from  birth  an  atmosphere 
poisoned  with  the  fumes  of  sin  and  shame  ? 
What  of  the  victims  of  alcohol,  morphine,  co- 
caine,  who  cry  for  freedom  from  a  slavery  that 
too  often  circumstance  and  hereditary  weakness 
have  made  inevitable  ?  Can  the  universe  refuse 
to  hear  their  cry  and  will  it  coldly  decline  to 
give  them  another  chance,  even  though  they  are 
realized  worth  less  than  nothing?  In  shuf- 
fling off  this  mortal  coil  must  they  not  shuffle 
off  existence  itself  as  valueless  to  God  and  man? 
So  it  would  seem  and  yet  a  protest  arises  up 
within  us  that  cannot  be  silenced.  What  if  even 
in  these  misguided  souls  there  are  possibilities 
thwarted  here  which  may  well  blossom  into 
virtue  and  honour  hereafter?  It  is  hard  —  nay, 
we  must  hold  it  is  impossible  —  to  kill  the  divine 
life,  to  quench  the  spark  increate  in  the  human 
soul.  Prince  Kropotkin  tells  a  story  in  Mutual 
Aid  as  a  Factor  in  Evolution  of  a  French  con- 
vict who  escaped  from  prison.  He  lay  concealed 


, 


98  THE  FUTURE  LIFE 

all  night  in  a  ditch  close  by  a  small  village, 
probably  intending  to  steal  something  to  help 
him  on  his  way.  As  he  was  lying  in  the  ditch  a 
fire  broke  out  in  the  village.  He  saw  a  woman 
run  out  of  one  of  the  burning  houses,  and  heard 
her  piercing  cries  for  help  to  save  a  child  in  the 
upper  story.  The  escaped  prisoner  dashed  out 
of  his  retreat,  made  his  way  through  the  fire,  and 
with  scalded  face  and  burning  clothes,  brought 
the  child  safely  out  and  restored  him  to  his 
mother.  The  village  officials  had  him  arrested 
and  returned  to  prison.  Kropotkin  speaks  of 
the  act  as  the  result  of  an  impulse  of  the  natural 
man,  and  not  to  be  attributed  to  any  inspiration 
of  "divine  grace."  But  the  "natural  man"  is 
an  abstraction.  He  has  never  been  seen  any- 
where except  in  the  pages  of  theologians  and 
philosophers,  and  he  could  not  appear  even 
there  were  it  not  that  all  that  is  divine  in  the 
real  man  is  left  out  of  account.  If  self-sacrifice 
at  the  risk  of  the  natural,  physical  life  is  not 
divine,  then  there  is  nothing  divine  anywhere  in 
the  realm  of  human  experience.  But  hope  for 
the  lost  is  only  possible,  if  we  can  ascribe  to  the 
universe,  or  rather  to  the  Power  that  rules 
within  it,  everlasting  compassion,  never-failing 
goodness.  But  here  again  to  justify  this  belief 
must  it  not  be  that  we  must  prove  that  this 


THE  MORAL  ARGUMENT  99 

world  is  only  the  vestibule  of  another  and  a 
greater  world  where  saving  and  redeeming 
forces  may  be  brought  into  play  for  the  good  of 
those  whom  nature  and  man  have  treated  so 
harshly? 


CHAPTER  VI 

JESUS   CHRIST  AND   THE   FUTURE   LIFE 

THE  apparent  silence  of  the  Founder  of  Chris- 
tianity concerning  another  life  has  often  been 
commented  on  as  strange  and  enigmatic.  Some 
have  gone  so  far  as  to  say  that,  like  Buddha,  He 
was  an  agnostic  on  all  matters  that  lay  beyond 
the  earthly  horizon,  and  had  no  word  of  wisdom 
to  offer  mankind  in  answer  to  its  eternal  ques- 
tion. "It  is  strange,"  says  Emerson,  "that 
Jesus  is  esteemed  by  mankind  the  Bringer  of 
the  doctrine  of  immortality.  He  is  never  weak 
or  sentimental;  He  is  very  abstemious  of  ex- 
planation. He  never  preaches  the  personal  im- 
mortality."1 Yet  it  is  this  Man  who  has  so 
quickened  the  thought  of  immortality,  so 
brought  it  home  to  the  human  heart  that  for 
all  time  His  religion  is  bound  up  with  the  asser- 
tion that  the  soul  has  within  it  the  power  of  an 
endless  life.  Here  is  indeed  a  puzzling  paradox. 
Only  a  parable  or  two,  and  a  few  scattered  say- 
ings on  the  great  theme  are  all  that  have  come 

1  Works,  vol.  viii,  p.  330. 

100 


JESUS  CHRIST  AND  FUTURE  LIFE    101 

down  to  us,  and  yet  immortality  becomes  one  of 
the  great  regulative  or  pivotal  ideas  of  Chris- 
tian thought  from  the  apostolic  age  to  modern 
times!  How  is  this?  Has  Christendom  mis- 
placed the  centre  of  gravity  in  Christ's  teach- 
ing! It  would  be  hard  to  avoid  this  conclusion 
if  the  contention  were  right  that  ethical  teach- 
ing apart  from  any  doctrine  of  a  future  life 
formed  the  sum  and  substance  of  Christ's  mes- 
sage. It  would  be  more  true  to  the  facts  to  say 
that  His  thought  and  outlook  were  deter- 
mined by  belief  in  the  immortal  life,  that  His 
religion  and  His  ethics  alike  would  be  meaning- 
less without  this  basic  truth.  "The  Sermon  on 
the  Mount,"  says  Dr.  J.  H.  Hyslop,  "is  far 
more  representative  of  the  primitive  Christian 
teaching  (that  is,  Christ's  own  teaching)  than 
the  doctrine  of  immortality. ' ' l  But  this  con- 
trast is  unreal  and  artificial.  For  the  ethical 
teaching  rests  on  immortality  as  its  essential 
presupposition.  It  is  true  that  the  Christian 
belief  in  life  immortal  goes  back  to  the  resur- 
rection of  Christ  and  finds  there  its  strength 
and  momentum,  but  the  appearances  after  the 
Crucifixion  would  not  have  been  credible  had  it 
not  been  for  His  message  and  the  overwhelming 
moral  impression  which  His  personality  exerted 

1  Life  After  Death,  p.  93. 


102  THE  FUTURE  LIFE 

on  His  followers.  We  fail  to  recognize  this  be- 
cause the  forms  in  which  were  cast  Christ's 
ideas  as  to  the  future  seem  to  us  foreign  and 
at  times  fantastic,  though  they  were  the  familiar 
religious  speech  of  the  age  to  which  He  be- 
longed. The  burden  of  His  message  is  a  su- 
preme reality  which  is  called  "the  Kingdom  of 
God,"  or  "the  Kingdom  of  Heaven."  The 
phrase  is  borrowed  from  the  apocalyptic  visions 
of  contemporary  piety,  which  in  turn  went  back 
to  the  teaching  of  the  prophets,  but  what  con- 
cerns us  is  its  meaning  for  Jesus.  Modern 
social  reformers  insist  the  Kingdom  of  God 
must  be  set  up  on  earth,  and  they  are  right; 
but  in  so  far  as  they  forget  that  no  temporal 
realization  of  the  ideal  can  satisfy  the  demand 
of  Jesus,  they  are  wrong.  To  His  vision  the 
Kingdom  was  the  divine  order  within  which  true 
life  was  to  be  realized,  a  life  to  which  death  was 
a  sheer  irrelevance.  In  the  Sermon  on  the 
Mount — in  all  probability,  a  collection  of 
thoughts  and  sayings  originally  delivered  at 
different  times — the  utterance  which  stands  first 
strikes  the  keynote  of  the  whole :  ' '  Blessed  are 
the  poor  in  spirit,  for  theirs  is  the  Kingdom  of 
Heaven, "  *  or,  as  in  the  more  original  form, 
"Blessed  are  ye  poor,  for  yours  is  the  King- 

1  Matthew  v,  3. 


JESUS  CHRIST  AND  FUTURE  LIFE    103 

dom  of  God. ' ' l  The  persons  to  whom  He  speaks 
were  the  socially  despised,  poor  peasants  and 
fisher  folk,  shut  out  from  the  good  things  of  this 
world.  He  opens  to  them  the  gates  of  a  new 
life  of  unbounded  possibilities.  He  preaches  the 
strange  wonderful  message  that  poverty  was  no 
barrier  to  the  Kingdom,  nay  rather,  it  was  at 
least  a  negative  preparation  for  entrance  to  it. 
The  failures  in  this  world  can  be  the  successes 
in  the  world  to  come.  This  message  was  new, 
yet  old.  Here,  as  elsewhere,  it  was  not  the 
function  of  Jesus  to  bring  unheralded  truths  to 
His  hearers.  Belief  in  immortality  had  been 
for  two  centuries  and  more  a  widely  accepted 
belief  among  the  Jewish  people.  Only  the 
worldly  and  sceptical  Sadducee  rejected  it. 
Hence  Jesus  was  not  constantly  asserting  it,  but 
He  sought  to  purify  it  from  the  crudities  of  popu- 
lar thinking,  to  moralize  it,  and  to  show  men 
how  to  live  so  as  to  prove  themselves  worthy  of 
such  high  destiny.  Still  more,  He  not  only 
taught  immortality,  He  practised  it.  To  Him 
the  invisible  world  was  more  real  than  physical 
objects  around  Him.  Messages,  voices,  mysteri- 
ous signs,  supernormal  "guidings"  flashed 
from  the  unseen  into  the  seen,  so  thin  was  the 
veil  that  divided  the  temporal  from  the  tran- 

'  Luke  vi,  20. 


104  THE  FUTURE  LIFE 

scendental  order.  Death  was  to  Him  simply  an 
episode  in  the  onward  march  of  life.  He  was 
not  interested  as  we  are  in  bare  survival.  His 
eye  was  fixed  on  life  as  a  spiritual  state,  as  a 
condition  of  moral  activity.  He  told  His  con- 
temporaries that  unless  their  goodness  was  of 
a  higher  order  than  that  of  the  professed  re- 
ligious classes,  they  would  in  no  wise  enter  the 
Kingdom  of  Heaven,1  and  this  Kingdom  He 
elsewhere  identifies  with  * '  eternal  life. " 2  In 
short,  as  the  preacher  of  a  practical  religion  He 
was  concerned  with  immortality  mainly  as  a 
motive  and  safeguard  of  the  spiritual  life. 

His  argument  with  the  Sadducees,3  who  de- 
nied immortality,  was  not  a  logical  and  reasoned 
plea.  Rather  was  it  a  deep  intuition,  a  far- 
reaching  glance  into  the  nature  of  God  and  of 
man.  They  put  to  Him  a  supposed  case  of  a 
woman  who  had  married,  in  accordance  with  the 
Mosaic  law,  seven  brothers  in  succession,  and 
the  question  which  seemed  to  reduce  the  future 
to  an  absurdity  was — whose  wife  shall  she  be 
in  the  resurrection?  The  reply  of  Jesus  at  once 
rejects  the  materialistic  assumption  underlying 
l4J  the  Sadducean  contention,  and  at  the  same  time 
1  asserts  a  real  personal  continuance  beyond  the 


1  Matthew  v,  20. 
*  Luke  xviii,  18,  24. 
»  Mark  xii,  18-27. 


JESUS  CHRIST  AND  FUTURE  LIFE    105 

v  grave.  Sex-relations,  He  intimates,  are  abol- 
ished in  the  other  world,  which  is  the  realm  of 
discarnate  spirits.  Men  and  women  are  as  the 
angels,  that  is,  the  order  to  which  they  belong 
transcends  the  present  order,  and  marriage, 
birth,  and  death  pass  away  with  all  that  is 
merely  physical.  The  divine  resources  are  not 
exhausted  in  the  arrangements  of  the  world 
that  now  is ;  they  are  able  to  call  into  existence 
new  arrangements  in  another  and  higher  realm. 
Thus  does  He  lay  down  the  basis  of  a  spiritual 
theory  of  immortality.  Yet  He  also  takes  care 
to  assert  the  persistence  of  personality  in  all  the 
fulness  of  its  powers.  His  questioners  accepted 
the  books  traditionally  ascribed  to  Moses,  and 
with  something  of  an  argumentum  ad  hominem 
He  asks  them  to  reflect  on  the  meaning  of  a 
passage  whose  authority  they  did  not  doubt :  "I 
am  the  God  of  Abraham,  and  the  God  of  Isaac, 
and  the  God  of  Jacob ' ' ;  His  own  interpretation 
comes  like  a  flash  of  light:  "God  is  not  the 
God  of  the  dead,  but  of  the  living."  Univer- 
salize these  terms  in  the  light  of  Christ's  teach- 
ing as  a  whole,  and  He  seems  to  say  to  the  Sad- 
ducees,  modern  as  well  as  ancient:  "The  per- 
sonality on  which  God  sets  a  value  cannot  be 
extinguished  in  death.  The  very  fact  that  God 
has  once  sustained  and  guided  the  soul  is  itself 


106  THE  FUTURE  LIFE 

the  guarantee  that  He  will  not  fail  it  in  death 
and  through  death."  Given  a  God  such  as 
Christ  conceived  Him  to  be  and  immortality 
follows  as  an  inevitable  inference.  God  is  per- 
sonal and  holy  love ;  man  is  His  child.  Can  we 
imagine  the  Eternal  Love  permitting  the  being 
loved  to  lapse  into  non-existence!  Such  a 
thought  introduces  a  schism  into  the  Divine 
nature  and  casts  a  blot  on  the  Divine  purpose. 
If  it  be  said  that  this  reasoning  is  valid  so  far 
as  good  men  are  concerned — but  what  of  the  evil 
and  the  base?  Immortality  may  indeed  be 
predicated  of  lives  that  are  of  spiritual  worth 
to  God,  but  surely  we  are  not  warranted  in 
extending  it  to  the  vicious,  the  criminal,  the 
worldly,  those  who  in  no  sense  can  be  called  the 
friends  of  God.  Now  it  is  here  that  we  must 
recall  Christ's  attitude  toward  human  nature  in 
general.  He  was  no  sentimentalist.  He  did  not 
put  on  the  same  level  as  of  equal  worth  in  the 
eyes  of  Heaven'  the  self-sacrificing  and  the 
selfish,  the  penitent  saint  and  the  impenitent 
sinner.  His  ethical  sanity  was  shown  on  the  one 
hand  in  the  distinction  which  He  drew  between 
those  who  did  and  those  who  did  not  the  will 
of  His  Father,  and  on  the  other  hand,  in  the 
emphasis  He  placed  on  the  potentialities  of  the 
soul,  however  degraded  and  lost  to  all  virtue. 


JESUS  CHRIST  AND  FUTURE  LIFE    107 

It  was  not  the  soul  at  any  given  moment  in  its 
career  which  filled  His  vision,  but  the  glorious 
possibilities  that  lay  hidden  from  the  world  and 
even  from  the  soul  itself.  Death  could  not  mean 
the  extinction  of  the  Divine  spark,  the  destruc- 
tion of  the  sleeping  potencies  of  even  the  most 
sinful.  On  the  contrary,  it  might  well  mean,  and 
in  a  universe  governed  by  the  Eternal  Good- 
ness it  ought  to  mean,  the  entrance  on  a  ca- 
reer of  reform  and  self-discipline  whereby 
all  that  was  lost  might  be  slowly  but  surely 
regained. 

Some  five  hundred  years  before  Christ  Plato 
formulated  his  argument  for  immortality  in  the 
Phaedo,  and  as  Jowett  has  pointed  out 1  there 
is  an  analogy  between  the  logic  of  that  work  and 
the  argument  in  the  Gospels.  Said  Plato:  "If 
the  ideas  of  men  are  eternal  their  souls  are 
eternal,  and  if  not  the  ideas,  not  the  souls." 
Said  Christ :  (^If  God  exists,  then  the  soul  exists 
after  death ;  and  if  there  is  no  God,  there  is  no 
existence  of  the  soul  after  death.'!)  It  is  prob- 
able that  Plato  believed  in  personal  immortal- 
ity, at  all  events  in  the  period  immediately  suc- 
ceeding the  death  of  Socrates.  His  doctrine  of 
transmigration,  however,  with  its  exclusion  of 
personal  memory,  by  implication  is  a  denial  of 

1  The  Dialogues  of  Plato,  Vol.  I,  p.  377. 


108  THE  FUTURE  LIFE 

personal  survival.     But  most  scholars  would 
say  that  he  failed  to  prove  it.    All  he  succeeded 
in  establishing  was  the  persistence  of  the  uni- 
versal soul,  the  substance  out  of  which  indi- 
vidual souls  are  made.    As  his  latest  editor  has 
said:  " There  is  nothing  to  prove  that  particu-/ 
lar  souls  in  their  departure  from  the  body  are\ 
not  reabsorbed  in  the  universal  spirit,  merging 
their  proper  consciousness  in  that  common  force 
of  nature  which  is  ever  manifesting  itself  anew  ( 
in  the  power  of  individual  life. ' '  * 

The  truth  is  that  as  one  reads  the  Phaedo 
one  is  conscious  that  Plato  is  greater  than  his 
arguments.  His  outlook  was  limited  by  the  in- 
tellectualism  which  characterized  his  time  and 
country.  What  he  strove  to  vindicate  was  the 
survival  of  man's  rational  consciousness, 
whereas  the  belief  of  Christ  conceived  of  the 
future  life  as  the  sphere  of  man's  moral  activity 
and  abiding  fellowship  with  God  in  faith  and 
service.  The  really  impressive  fact  is  that  He 
who  by  general  confession  stands  first  in  the 
order  of  holiness,  preaches  the  same  truth  that 
lay  so  close  to  the  deepest  interests  of  the 
philosopher  who  stands  first  in  the  order  of  in- 
tellect. No  authority  indeed,  however  high,  can 
compel  belief,  yet  the  insights  of  the  incom- 

1JR.  D.  Archer-Hind:  Phaedo  of  Plato,  2d  Ed.,  preface,  p.  28. 


JESUS  CHRIST  AND  FUTURE  LIFE    109 

parably  great  are  surely  more  likely  to  be 
true  to  reality  than  the  vaticinations  of  lesser 
spirits. 

It  is  obvious  that  Christ  could  not  communi- 
cate precise  details  as  to  the  exact  conditions 
of  the  life  beyond,  and  we  may  add,  He  would 
not  even  if  He  could.  He  lived  in  an  age  and 
in  a  land  steeped  in  superstitious  ideas  of  the 
world  beyond.  It  was  not  His  role  to  vie  with 
the  dreamers  and  visionaries  who  revelled  in 
the  bizarre  and  vainglorious  pictures  of  the 
future,  and  who  professed  to  unveil  to  the  living 
world  the  secrets  of  the  dead.  Moreover,  even 
if  to  His  clairvoyant  vision  there  had  been  re- 
vealed the  invisible  world  of  the  discarnate,  so 
that  He  knew  precisely  how  they  lived  and  what 
they  did,  how  could  He  share  His  knowledge 
with  those  about  Him?  Only  through  sensory 
symbols,  the  means  of  our  present  experience, 
could  these  things  be  told,  and  scepticism  would 
have  always  its  plausible  arguments  wherewith 
to  explain  away  the  presumed  revelations.  It 
is  His  glory  to  have  lifted  the  great  fact  of 
immortality  out  of  dark  and  superstitious  imag- 
inings into  the  clear  light  of  moral  truth,  and 
of  the  ever-living  and  necessary  laws  that  gov- 
ern the  spiritual  universe.  Hence,  while  He  is 
silent  as  to  matters  which  could  only  satisfy 


110  THE  FUTUKE  LIFE 

curiosity,  He  is  not  heedless  of  the  imperious 
needs  of  the  soul,  or  of  the  hopes  that  give  unity 
and  dignity  to  life. 

But  there  is  another  reason  for  His  reserve 
as  to  the  place,  mode,  and  conditions  of  the  here- 
after. With  Him  the  thought  of  a  life  after 
death  is  contained  in  a  thought  more  august 
still,  the  closeness  of  the  coming  Age,  the  eter- 
nal Kingdom  of  God.  To  His  prophetic  spirit 
the  time  was  foreshortened.  An  old  world  was 
dying,  a  new  one  was  about  to  be  born.  Hence 
He  regarded  all  things  in  the  light  of  this  stu- 
pendous event.  The  sceptical  reasonings  of  the 
philosopher,  the  curious  questionings  of  the 
common  people,  seemed  to  Him  the  merest 
trifling  in  view  of  the  supreme  reality  that  was 
about  to  burst  with  the  crash  of  doom  on  the 
world  of  appearance,  and  to  usher  in  a  new 
heaven  and  a  new  earth  wherein  alone 
righteousness  should  dwell.  Christ  was  not  a 
theosophist  preaching  to  men  an  occult  science, 
nor  was  He  concerned  with  the  special  difficul- 
ties which  beset  a  materialistic  age  like  our  own. 
On  the  contrary,  He  was  the  Herald  of  the  end, 
the  Preacher  of  repentance  with  a  view  to  en- 
trance into  a  kingdom  whose  morning  was  about 
to  dawn;  and  His  whole  being  was  flung  into  a 
delirium  of  effort  to  awaken  men  to  a  realization 


JESUS  CHRIST  AND  FUTURE  LIFE    111 

of  the  cosmic  event,  sublime  and  glorious  be- 
yond their  utmost  power  to  imagine.  What 
had  He  to  do  with  the  How  and  the  Why,  the 
This  or  the  That  of  the  future?  He  sends  out 
His  disciples  to  proclaim  in  tones  of  trumpet 
clearness  His  word  of  warning.  The  time  is  all 
too  short,  only  long  enough  for  repentance.  All 
questions  of  an  interesting  kind  about  how  the 
dead  fare  in  their  hidden  world  were  swallowed 
up  in  the  awe-inspiring  expectation  that  very 
soon  the  gathered  generations,  past  and  present, 
would  enter  on  a  new  life  of  transcendent 
blessedness. 

In  the  parable  of  the  Rich  Man  and  Lazarus,1 
the  plutocrat  who  was  "clothed  in  fine  linen  and 
fared  sumptuously  every  day"  and  the  poor 
man,  "laid  at  his  gate,  full  of  sores,  and  desir- 
ing to  be  fed  with  the  crumbs  which  fell  from 
the  rich  man's  table,"  we  have  an  imaginative 
picture  of  the  law  of  moral  continuity.  The 
curtain  falls  upon  the  life-history  of  these  two 
men,  and  when  it  lifts  again,  we  find  the  rich 
man  in  torment  and  the  poor  man  in  blessed- 
ness. What  is  the  meaning  of  the  story!  Is  it 
that  wealth  here  means  poverty  in  the  world 
beyond,  and  poverty  here  means  wealth  there? 
So  thinks  Dr.  G.  Stanley  Hall,  who,  in  his  work 

1  Luke  xvi,  19-31. 


112  THE  FUTURE  LIFE 

Jesus  Christ  in  the  Light  of  Psychology,  re- 
marks that  "there  is  no  intimation  that  Dives 
had  any  guilt  save  that  of  being  rich,  or  that 
Lazarus  had  any  merit  save  poverty,  unless 
Dives  ought  to  have  known  and  relieved  the  suf- 
fering of  Lazarus ;  but  the  next  world  is  simply 
one  of  complemental  reversal.  Wealth  here  is 
repaid  with  Hell  there  and  pauperism  with 
Heaven. ' ' x 

One  of  Martineau's  incisive  criticisms  might 
be  appropriately  applied  to  this  statement:  "It 
contains  the  maximum  of  error  in  the  minimum 
of  space."  A  careful  reading  of  the  story  with 
allowance  for  Christ's  method  of  leaving  some- 
thing to  the  imagination  of  His  hearers  will 
prove  that  He  does  not  make  the  incidence  of 
penalty  or  suffering  in  the  other  world  a 
mechanical  affair,  a  thing  dependent  on  the 
chance  of  death.  He  represents  the  poor  man 
as  laid  at  the  gates  of  the  rich  man,  desiring  to 
be  fed.  Is  this  not  a  hint  that  the  sin  of  the 
rich  man  lay  not  in  his  riches,  but  in  his  lack 
of  sympathy  with  the  beggar  staring  him  in  the 
face  day  by  day?  But  still  more  important  is 
the  emphasis  on  repentance.  Why  does  the  rich 
man  implore  Abraham  to  send  Lazarus  to  his 
five  brothers  on  earth  that  they  may  repent? 

1  Vol.  II,  p.  586. 


JESUS  CHRIST  AND  FUTURE  LIFE    113 

Repent  of  what?  Of  being  rich  or  of  failing  to 
use  their  riches  aright?  To  ask  that  question 
is  to  answer  it.  The  rich  man  is  condemned, 
then,  not  because  he  was  rich,  but  because  he 
was  heartless.  He  suffers  the  result  of  selfish 
living.  This  is  the  lesson  of  the  parable,  and 
the  idea  of  immortality  is  simply  called  in  to 
reinforce  the  moral,  not  as  a  truth  of  indepen- 
dent significance  to  be  taught  for  its  own  sake. 
Christ  has  thus  moralized,  as  none  else  has  ever 
done,  the  realms  of  heaven  and  hell.  They  are 
not  static  conditions.  There  is  an  upward  and 
a  downward  movement.  The  law  of  moral  con- 
tinuity holds  good  there  as  well  as  here. 
"Whatsoever  a  man  soweth  that  shall  he  also 
reap."  Yet  there  is  impressed  on  man's  spirit- 
ual constitution  a  law  of  renewal  whereby  the 
very  abhorrence  for  his  sin,  awakened  within 
him  by  the  discipline  of  pain,  marks  the  first 
stage  of  his  recovery.  And  may  we  not  see  a 
trace  of  the  working  of  this  law  in  the  soul  of 
the  tormented  as  he  begs  for  some  message 
from  the  dead  to  carry  an  admonition  to  his 
brethren  lest  they  also  should  tempt  the  same 
fate?  Nor  must  we  suppose  that  in  Christ's 
thought  all  punishment  in  the  future  life  is  on 
the  same  non-moral  level.  Responsibility  goes 
hand  in  hand  with  privilege.  The  servant  that 


114  THE  FUTURE  LIFE 

knew  his  master's  will  and  did  it  not  shall  be 
beaten  with  many  stripes,  whereas  he  that  knew 
it  not  and  did  things  worthy  of  stripes  shall  be 
beaten  with  few  stripes.1 

It  is  the  weakness  of  the  modern  pulpit  that 
in  a  natural  reaction  against  the  over-emphasis 
of  an  earlier  age  on  the  punishments  of  the 
other  world  and  against  the  exaggerations  in 
which  an  unbridled  imagination  revelled,  it 
should  fall  into  the  opposite  error  of  obscuring 
the  life  after  death  by  vague  generalities 
wherein  the  dread  effects  of  selfish  living  on  the 
post-mortem  future  of  the  soul  tend  to  vanish 
from  all  vital  conviction.  The  extreme  and  un- 
warranted pronouncements  of  popular  evan- 
gelism that  outrage  alike  the  spirit  of  a  rational 
religion  and  the  teaching  of  sound  psychology, 
are  no  valid  excuse  for  the  failure  of  the  pulpit 
to  proclaim,  in  harmony  with  Christ's  thought, 
that  our  desires  and  deeds  have  a  permanent 
effect  on  character,  that  every  act  leaves  its 
marks,  for  weal  or  woe,  on  the  soul  and  that  not 
Omnipotence  itself  can  annul  the  law  which 
binds  suffering  to  sin.  In  our  fear  of  introduc- 
ing selfish  motives  into  the  life  of  virtue,  we 
have  forgotten  that  after  all  we  are  moral  and 
intelligent  beings,  and  that  the  consequences  of 

'Luke  xii,  47,  48. 


JESUS  CHRIST  AND  FUTURE  LIFE    115 

our  acts  are  in  part,  at  all  events,  a  motive  to 
action. 

Doubtless  there  is  noble  truth  in  the  story  of 
that  mysterious  woman  who  was  seen  once  on 
the  streets  of  Damascus,  bearing  in  the  one 
hand  a  pan  of  fire  and  in  the  other  a  pitcher  of 
water.  On  being  asked  what  she  purposed  to 
do  with  them,  she  answered:  "  Burn  up  Para- 
dise and  put  out  the  fires  of  Hell  so  that  men 
may  do  good  for  the  love  of  God  alone. "  Yet 
we  need  not  hesitate  to  affirm  that  the  vast 
majority  of  men  have  not  reached  as  yet  that 
peak  of  perfection,  and  that  therefore  we  can- 
not dispense  with  such  ethical  stimulants  to 
self-improvement  as  may  be  afforded  by  the 
contemplation  of  the  indestructible  effects  on 
our  spiritual  future  of  what  we  think  and  do 
here  and  now. 

But  perhaps  what  needs  emphasis  at  the 
present  time,  when  ecclesiastical  tradition  has 
so  dehumanized  our  Lord's  thought  that  the 
life  beyond  has  lost  its  savour  for  even  many 
Christians,  is  that  the  other  world  is  a  world  of 
truly  human  relations  and  activities.  Under 
the  symbols  which  He  uses  we  discern  that  the 
after-world  is  a  social  order.  He  figures  the 
relations  in  which  spirits  shall  stand  to  each 
other  as  those  natural  to  frank  and  joyous  inter- 


116  THE  FUTURE  LIFE 

course.  Very  significant  is  the  fact  that  He 
selects  the  homely  illustration  of  a  common  meal 
in  order  to  portray  the  happiness  of  the  good. 
"They  will  come  from  the  east  and  the  west, 
from  the  north  and  the  south,  and  sit  down  at 
table  in  the  Kingdom  of  God. ' ' x  Jesus  Himself 
looked  forward  to  a  joyful  rendezvous  with  the 
great  prophetic  spirits  of  the  past,  whom  He 
expected  to  recognize.  He  speaks  of  "Abra- 
ham, Isaac,  and  Jacob  and  all  the  prophets  in 
the  Kingdom  of  God,"  with  whom  He  hoped  to 
hold  converse.  His  unwavering  assurance  on 
this  point  as  compared  with  the  doubt  of 
Socrates  whether  he  would  meet  after  death 
with  the  wise  and  great  of  the  past  is  due  to 
that  firm  hold  on  the  reality  of  God  which  the 
philosopher  could  not  attain. 

Clearly  Jesus  conceives  of  the  world  beyond 
the  grave  as  an  organized  community.  He 
speaks  of  eating,  drinking,  judging,  serving,  of 
scenes  of  joy  and  happiness  in  the  presence  of 
angels — all  symbols,  no  doubt,  but  symbols 
which  point  to  an  organized  life.  Here  we  have 
no  neo-platonic  flight  of  the  alone  to  the  Alone, 
no  survival  simply  of  the  intellect  as  philoso- 
phers have  imagined,  but  the  continuance  and 

1  Luke  xiii,  29.  Compare  the  Parable  of  the  Wedding  Feast, 
Matthew  xxii,  1-14. 


JESUS  CHRIST  AND  FUTURE  LIFE    117 

enjoyment  of  all  truly  human  powers  and  facul- 
ties. Whatever  else  the  future  life  may  be,  at 
least  it  will  not  be  thinner  or  poorer  than  the  life 
we  now  know. 

Within  the  community  there  is  room  for  work. 
Unselfish  service  to  God  and  man  will  char- 
acterize the  good;  and  the  greatest  will  be  the 
most  eminent  in  serving  others.  "My  Father 
worketh  up  till  now, ' '  says  Jesus, ' '  and  I  work. ' ' 
And  if  God  and  Christ  are  eternally  working, 
it  follows  that  those  who  would  resemble  them 
in  spirit  will  participate  in  their  activities. 
Everlasting  unemployment  would  to  the  human 
spirit  become  an  intolerable  burden;  and  too 
often  the  heavenly  world  has  been  presented 
as  a  scene  of  idleness.  Yet  the  law  of  contin- 
uity would  suggest  that  we  shall  in  the  world 
beyond  engage  in  those  pursuits  analogous  to 
those  for  which  we  have  taste  and  aptitude  in 
this  world.  Just  as  in  this  life  our  highest 
happiness  lies  in  the  exercise  of  our  moral 
energies,  so  in  the  new  world,  these  energies, 
set  free  from  the  hampering  influences  of  the 
body  and  inherited  or  acquired  weakness,  shall 
win  greater  heights  of  achievement  than  were 
possible  to  us  here.  And  when  we  reflect  that, 
as  Christ  teaches,  there  are  lesser  and  greater 
in  the  Kingdom,  it  is  not  overstraining  the 


118  THE  FUTURE  LIFE 

thought  to  say  that  no  small  part  of  the  work 
of  good  men  and  women  in  the  world  to  come 
will  be  in  the  exercise  of  their  philanthropic  and 
redeeming  powers.  The  weak,  the  ignorant,  the 
sinful,  the  penitent,  shall  all  need  help  there  as 
they  need  it  here.  Will  it  not  be  the  joy  of  the 
learned,  the  strong,  the  spiritually  advanced  to 
share  their  good  things  with  the  spiritually  in- 
ferior ? 

And  what  about  our  relation  to  those  in  this 
spirit-world?  Are  they  beyond  the  reach  of 
our  thought  and  desire?  Let  us  remind  our- 
selves that  the1  dead  live  in  God  even  as  they 
lived  in  Him  when  they  were  in  the  flesh;  and 
if  we  could  pray  for  them  and  they  could  pray 
for  us  on  this  material  plane  what  power  has 
death  to  destroy  our  spiritual  fellowship  with 
them  that  they  are  no  longer  within  our  physi- 
cal ken?  Death  in  itself,  be  it  repeated,  is  a 
physical  process  and  works  no  metamorphosis 
on  the  human  spirit ;  not  one  of  our  moral  and 
spiritual  relations  is  altered.  To  cease  to 
pray  for  one  who  has  passed  through  the  ex- 
perience of  death  must  mean  either  that  death 
is  the  end  or  that  the  world  into  which  it  ushers 
the  soul  is  static  in  character,  admitting  of  no 
spiritual  progress — which  latter  doctrine  robs 
the  life  hereafter  of  all  interest  and  value  to 


JESUS  CHRIST  AND  FUTURE  LIFE    119 

any  rational  intelligence.  Surely  it  is  more  in 
harmony  with  right  reason  and  with  the  genius 
of  the  Christian  religion  to  believe  that  the 
spiritual  laws  which  obtain  in  the  present  order 
of  existence  are  valid  as  far  as  human  experi- 
ence extends.  With  our  prayers  we  may  follow 
our  dead  into  their  new  life,  and  we  may  well 
believe  that  our  desires  can  help  them  amid 
their  new  duties,  experiences,  and  responsibili- 
ties. (And  may  we  not  add  that  as  long  as  they 
retain  memory  and  consciousness  they  will  not 
fail  to  think  of  us  and  to  breathe  a  prayer  that 
unto  us  also  all  may  be  well?) 

Thus  does  the  other  world  open  up  be- 
fore us  a  sphere,  truly  human  yet  freed  from 
our  terrestrial  limitations,  with  endless  oppor- 
tunity for  the  divine  enterprises  of  pity, 
patience,  self-sacrifice,  for  the  unimpeded  play 
of  all  our  moral  energies  devoted  to  the  good 
of  our  fellows.  Such  a  world  cannot  but  ap- 
peal to  our  noblest  instincts  and  cannot  but 
substitute  for  a  languid  belief  the  glowing 
ardour  of  high  desires.  With  this  vision  of  a 
future  lighted  with  the  radiant  hues  of  hope, 
we  can  gird  ourselves  for  the  tasks  of  the  pres- 
ent life  in  assured  confidence  that  no  true  work 
accomplished  here  shall  fail  of  its  spiritual 
fruition  hereafter. 


/ 

8 


CHAPTER  VH 

DID   JESUS  EISE   FROM   THE   DEAD! 

thing  is  certain,"  says  Harnack,  "from 
this  [Christ's]  grave  has  sprung  the  inde- 
structible faith  in  the  overthrow  of  death  and 
in  an  eternal  life.  .  .  .  Wherever  today  against 
all  the  impressions  of  nature  there  exists  a 
strong  faith  in  the  infinite  worth  of  the  soul, 
wherever  death  has  lost  its  terrors,  wherever 
the  sufferings  of  this  world  are  measured 
against  a  future  glory,  there  is  bound  up  with 
these  vital  feelings  the  conviction  that  Jesus 
Christ  has  forced  His  way  through  death ;  that 
God  has  awakened  Him  and  raised  Him  to  life 
and  glory. " x  In  Christendom,  at  all  events, 
wherever  faith  in  a  future  life  is  still  a  vital  con- 
viction, it  is  to  be  traced  back  to  the  belief  that 
Jesus  Christ  survived  bodily  death  and  reap- 
peared to  certain  of  His  followers.  No  one  dis- 
putes the  fact  that  had  it  not  been  for  faith  in 
the  Resurrection  the  cause  of  Jesus  would  have 
perished  with  Him  in  His  grave.  Further,  no  I 

1  Das  Wesen  des  Christenthums,  p.  102. 
120 


DID  JESUS  RISE  FROM  THE  DEAD?  121 

one  disputes  the  fact  that  apart  from  this  faith 
it  would  be  impossible  to  account  for  the  exist- 
ence of  one  of  the  greatest  institutions  in  his- 
tory, the  Church,  using  the  term  in  no  narrow 
or  sectarian  sense.  And  lastly,  no  one  disputes 
the  fact  that  between  the  paralysis  of  faith,  the 
utter  despair  born  of  the  tragedy  of  the 
Master's  end,  and  the  beginnings  of  the  vic- 
torious campaign  which  His  followers  conducted 
against  the  combined  forces  of  ecclesiasticism, 
imperialism,  and  popular  superstition,  some- 
thing happened,  and  this  something  they  al- 
leged to  be  the  Resurrection.  Hence  the  biog- 
raphy of  Jesus  does  not  end  with  His  death ;  it 
must  include  His  appearances  after  death.  For 
His  influence  in  history  took  its  rise  in  and  is 
sustained  by  the  conviction  that  He  manifested 
Himself  on  the  material  plane  after  His  cruci- 
fixion. These  facts  are  beyond  all  reasonable 
I  doubt,  account  for  them  as  we  may. 

But  doubts  and  difficulties  begin  to  emerge  as 
soon  as  we  seek  to  understand  what  precisely 
we  mean  by  the  Resurrection  and  what  value  we 
are  to  attach  to  the  historical  testimonies 
brought  forward  in  its  behalf.  Very  often  the 
devout  Christian  confounds  his  present  experi- 
ence of  Christ  as  a  spiritual  force  energizing  in 
his  life  with  the  historical  fact  that  Christ  rose 


122  THE  FUTURE  LIFE 

from  the  dead  in  Palestine  about  1900  years  ago. 
We  can  experience  the  living  mystical  Christ 
through  His  influence  over  our  characters.  For, 
as  the  unknown  author  of  Theologia  Germanica 
writes:  "In  so  far  as  a  man's  life  is  according 
to  Christ,  Christ  Himself  dwelleth  in  him,  and 
if  he  hath  not  the  one,  neither  hath  he  the  other. 
For  where  there  is  the  life  of  Christ,  there  is 
Christ  Himself. ' '  *  But  this  mystical  experience 
has  nothing  to  do  with  facts  of  history.  These 
must  be  proved  by  historical  witnesses.  That 
Christ  energizes  in  the  moral  universe  today  we 
can  experience  for  ourselves;  that  on  the  first 
Easter  morning  He  rose  from  the  dead  is  an 
historical  happening  to  be  established  by  his- 
torical research  and  study  of  all  available 
sources  of  information.  Now,  when  we  turn  to 
the  New  Testament  within  which  all  the  acces- 
sible testimony  is  to  be  found,  we  discern  two 
main  traditions,  one  handed  down  in  the 
Gospels,  confused,  discrepant,  and  clearly  con- 
sisting of  divergent  reports  originating  in  dif- 
ferent quarters  of  the  Christian  community,  but 
bearing  witness  in  essence  to  one  sublime  cer- 
tainty: "He  is  risen.  It  is  He  Himself  and  not 
some  visual  shade  that  we  have  seen.  The  same 
Jesus  that  we  knew  and  loved  when  He  lived 

1  Chapter  xlvi. 


DID  JESUS  RISE  FROM  THE  DEAD?   123 

amongst  us,  manifested  Himself  to  us  by  in- 
fallible proofs."  It  would  be  easy  to  draw  up 
a  rather  formidable  list  of  discrepancies  be- 
tween the  narratives  of  the  four  Gospels,  and 
a  vast  amount  of  ingenuity  has  been  spent  in 
disentangling  the  various  strands  of  tradition 
that  have  been  so  greatly  confused.  But  hap- 
pily we  are  not  dependent  on  these  stories  which 
are  the  source  of  our  most  perplexing  difficulties 
today.  We  have  another,  a  simpler  and  an 
absolutely  authentic  account  by  St.  Paul,  who 
wrote  his  First  Epistle  to  the  Corinthians  some 
twenty-five  years  after  the  Crucifixion.  This 
testimony  is  the  solid  rock  on  which  the  waves 
of  destructive  criticism  have  dashed  in  vain. 
The  present  writer  believes  that  any  open  ancT7 
candid  mind,  prepossessed  with  no  dogmatic( 
assumptions  against  the  survival  of  the  soul 
after  death,  can  convince  itself  that  Christ 
emerged  from  the  realm  of  the  dead,  and  mani- 
fested Himself  on  the  material  plane  to  certain 
witnesses,  by  concentrating  attention  on  what 
Paul  has  to  say  in  the  light  of  modern  reflection, 
using  the  Gospel  records  as  subsidiary  and  cor-/ 
roborative. ")  All  his  authentic  letters  rest  on  and 
imply  his  own  direct  and  immediate  experience 
of  the  actuality  of  the  Resurrection.  The  most 
famous  and  the  most  cogent  passage  is,  as  has 


124  THE  FUTURE  LIFE 


been  indicated,  the  fifteenth  chapter  of  the  First 
r  Epistle  to  the  Corinthians,  verses  3-8,  11.  Here 
I  are  his  words  in  Dr.  Moffatt  's  well-known  trans- 
lation: "  First  and  foremost,  I  passed  on  to  you 
what  I  had  myself  received,  namely,  that  Christ 
died  for  our  sins  as  the  scriptures  had  said,  that 
he  was  buried,  that  he  rose  on  the  third  day,  as 
the  scriptures  had  said,  and  that  he  was  seen  by 
J  Cephas,  then  by  the  twelve  ;  after  that,  he  was 
J  seen  by  over  five  hundred  brothers  all  at  once, 
the  majority  of  whom  survive  to  this  day, 
though  some  have  died  ;  after  that  he  was  seen 
by  James,  then  by  all  the  apostles,  and  finally, 
he  was  seen  by  myself,  by  this  so-called  'abor- 
tion' of  an  apostle.  .  .  .  Such  is  what  we 
J  preach,  such  is  what  you  believed.  '  ' 

Let  us  consider  this  calm  and  measured  state- 
ment with  a  mind  free  from  all  dogmatic  pre- 
possessions and  anxious  only  to  learn  the 
facts. 

To  begin  with,  the  Apostle  is  not  proclaiming 
a  new  idea  which  he  wishes  to  commend  to 
doubting  or  sceptical  minds.  On  the  contrary, 
he  is  setting  forth  the  common  faith  of  the 
Christian  Society,  the  faith  which  he  had  him- 
self received,  and  which  the  Christians  at 
Corinth  had  believed  through  the  agency  of  his 
preaching.  His  experience  was  not  a  private 


» 


DID  JESUS  RISE  FROM  THE  DEAD?  125 

matter.  It  was  one  which  he  shared  with  Peter 
and  James  and  the  rest.  If  it  be  asked  what 
opportunity  he  had  for  learning  what  they  had 
witnessed,  it  suffices  to  point  to  Paul's  own 
statement  that  he  spent  a  fortnight  at  Peter's 
house  in  Jerusalem  a  few  years  after  the  Cruci- 
fixion.1 

It  is  to  be  further  noted  that  the  Apostle  does 
not  describe  the  Resurrection.  "He  rose  on 
the  third  day."  Rose  from  where?  And  how 
did  He  rise?  Paul  is  silent.  All  we  know  is 
that  He  rose  from  among  the  dead,  or  departed 
spirits,  into  light  and  glory.  And  as  this  event 
took  place  in  the  invisible  world,  it  is  obvious 
that  no  description  of  its  mode  or  conditions  is 
possible.  In  a  later  part  of  the  chapter  he 
argues  for  the  resurrection  of  the  body,  but  not 
the  body  laid  in  the  grave  (that  is  flesh  and 
blood  which  cannot  inherit  the  heavenly  world), 
but  another  and  a  different  body.  We  infer, 
then,  that  Paul  would  have  us  know  that  Jesus 
rose  out  of  the  world  of  spirits  in  a  new  and 
spiritual  embodiment. 

But  what  Paul  emphasizes  is  not  Christ's  act 
of  rising  from  the  dead.  It  is  His  appearances 
that  he  stresses.  And  the  appearances  which 
he  records  are  six  in  number.  This  does  not 

1  Galatians  i,  18,  19. 


126  THE  FUTURE  LIFE 

mean  that  there  were  not  others,  it  only  means 
that  these  are  cited  as  known  to  the  Apostle 
and  as  constituting  a  solid  defence  of  the  central 
truth  of  the  Christian  religion.  He  *  *  appeared ' ' 
to  Peter,  to  the  Twelve,  to  more  than  five  hun- 
dred members  of  the  Christian  community  at 
one  time,  to  James,  to  all  the  Apostles,  and 
finally,  to  Paul  himself.  The  appearances  to 
Peter  and  to  the  Twelve  are  corroborated  by  the 
tradition  preserved  in  the  Gospel  of  Luke.1  If 
St.  Paul  had  not  been  sure  of  what  he  was  say- 
ing, how  could  he,  while  Peter  and  a  majority 
of  the  more  than  five  hundred  referred  to  were 
alive,  proclaim  the  fact  of  the  appearances  as 
witnessed  by  them? 

When  we  consider  the  psychological  situation 
created  by  Christ's  tragic  end,  implying  as  it 
did  the  refutation  of  His  claim  to  be  the  ap- 
pointed Messenger  of  Heaven,  and  the  utter 
shipwreck  of  His  followers'  hopes,  to  be  suc- 
ceeded shortly  afterwards  by  a  recreated  faith 
in  His  divine  mission,  and  by  a  boundless 
courage  and  an  unconquerable  moral  energy, 
the  principle  of  causality  demands  that  a  suf- 
ficient reason  be  forthcoming  for  such  a  mo- 
mentous transformation.  Now  Paul  supplies 
the  necessary  cause.  It  was  the  certain  and  per- 

1  Chapter  xxiv,  34,  36. 


DID  JESUS  RISE  FROM  THE  DEAD?   127 

manent  conviction  of  these  witnesses  that  they 
had  been  in  contact  with  Jesus  Himself  in  all 
the  fulness  of  His  personal  life,  and  for  this 
conviction  they  were  prepared,  if  need  be,  to 
lay  down  their  lives.  It  was  their  unshaken 
assurance  that  their  risen  Master  had  mani- 
fested Himself  to  one  or  more  of  their  physical 
senses.  Modern  sceptical  writers  do  not  ques- 
tion that  the  disciples  believed  they  saw  Jesus 
after  His  death,  but  they  hold  that  the  belief 
was  a  mistaken  interpretation  of  a  purely  self- 
created  and  subjective  phenomenon.  What  the 
disciples  really  saw  was  not  Jesus  nor  any  other 
objective  reality  whatever,  but  a  reaction  of 
their  own  minds  under  the  rebound  from  de- 
spair, a  reaction  which  took  the  form  of,  or,  as  it 
were,  projected  itself  as  a  visual  impression. 
What  they  experienced  was  the  creation  of  a 
powerful  autosuggestion  and  is  to  be  explained 
by  purely  psychical  processes.  It  is  very  sig- 
nificant that  in  the  most  recent  attempt  to  con- 
trovert the  reality  of  Christ's  Resurrection, 
the  writer  refuses  to  face  the  Pauline 
witness.  He  confines  himself  to  the  easy  task 
of  refuting  the  notion  of  a  physical  resur- 
rection.1 

Now  both  belief  and  scepticism  are  agreed  on 

1  A.  W.  Martin :  Faith  in  the  Future  Life. 


128  THE  FUTURE  LIFE 

one  point :  these  witnesses  had  visions  of  Jesus 
after  His  death.  But  while  the  sceptic  holds 
that  the  visions  were  like  the  dagger  which  the 
heat-oppressed  brain  of  Macbeth  conjured  up, 
"a  false  creation,"  the  witnesses  themselves 
were  convinced  that  what  they  saw  was  "veri- 
dical," that  is,  truth-telling,  and  was  produced 
by  the  actual  presence  of  the  real  and  veritable 
Jesus  whom  they  had  seen  and  heard  in  the 
days  of  His  flesh.  Surely  the  burden  of  proof 
lies  with  the  sceptic.  What  evidence  does  he 
bring  forward  to  refute  the  claim  of  those  who 
assert  that  they  beheld  the  form  of  One  who  had 
died?  None.  All  he  can  do  is  to  fall  back  upon 
the  assumption:  "dead  men  do  not  rise." 
Rather  than  believe  in  the  possibility  of  such 
an  event,  it  is  preferable,  he  would  hold,  to 
strain  psychological  possibilities  to  the  break- 
ing-point or  to  throw  up  the  whole  problem  as  Jh- 
insoluble.  But  how  do  we  know  that  dead  men 
do  not  rise!  We  do  not  know  it  and  the  asser- 
tion is  a  mere  assumption,  and  an  assumption  — f  ^ 
which  is  being  called  in  question  more  and  more 
as  time  passes.  If  our  view  of  the  universe 
makes  this  world  a  self-contained  whole,  com- 
pletely shut  off  from  the  world  of  the  discar- 
nate  so  that  we  cannot  even  say  with  Fechner, 
"sometimes  a  little  chink  does  open,  suddenly 


DID  JESUS  RISE  FROM  THE  DEAD?  129 

and  quickly  closes  again,  in  the  gate  generally 
shut  up  between  this  world  and  the  next,"  then 
the  matter  is  foredetermined,  and  discussion  is 
superfluous.  On  the  other  hand,  if  we  have 
found  reasons  to  believe  that  the  veil  which 
hides  the  other  world  from  us  has  grown  so 
thin  that  to  some  finer  sense  than  those  which 
make  us  aware  of  physical  things  has  been 
revealed  a  glimpse  of  a  transcendental  realm 
close  to  us  and  crowded  with  other  intelligences, 
we  can  accept  the  simple  and  natural  view  of 
Christ's  friends  that  He  was  actually  present 
and  convinced  them  of  His  reality.  It  is  a 
striking  fact  that  some  men  of  distinction,  like 
the  late  Mr.  F.  W.  H.  Myers,  who  had  lost  faith 
in  the  Resurrection,  because  of  its  incompati- 
bility with  their  view  of  the  natural  order,  have 
recovered  their  faith  because  of  experiences 
which  compelled  them  to  change  their  concep- 
tion of  this  order.  In  his  work,  Survival  of 
Human  Personality  After  Bodily  Death,  this 
writer  speaking  of  these  experiences  says  that 
"as  a  matter  of  fact  our  research  has  led  us  to 
results  that  have  not  been  negative  only  but 
largely  positive.  We  have  shown  that  amid 
much  deception  and  self-deception,  fraud  and 
illusion  veritable  manifestations  do  reach  us 
from  beyond  the  grave.  The  central  claim  of 


130  THE  FUTURE  LIFE 

Christianity  is   thus   confirmed   as  never   be- 
fore."1 

Granted,  it  may  be  said,  that  Jesus  Christ  in 
the  first  century  of  our  era  stepped  forth  from 
the  invisible  into  the  phenomenal  world,  what 
bearing  has  that  fact  today  on  faith  in  the  life 
after  death?  Now  we  are  in  a  different  situa- 
tion from  that  in  which  the  first  Christians 
found  themselves.  They  were  visited  by  a 
wonderful  and  soul-transforming  experience,  a 
vision  of  the  Son  of  Man  risen  from  the  dead; 
we  in  this  far  distant  age,  with  minds  prepos- 
sessed with  a  philosophical  or  scientific  world- 
view,  must  grope  our  way  back  to  the  great 
event  amid  manifold  historical,  critical,  and 
psychological  difficulties.  The  men  of  the  first 
century  argued:  immortality  is  a  fact,  a  glori- 
ous and  palpable  reality,  filling  earth  and  sky 
with  its  splendour,  for  we  have  beheld  with  our 
eyes  the  face  and  form  of  Him  who  had  been 
crucified  and  who  had  died  and  had  been  buried. 
We  argue :  believing  as  we  do  in  the  Fatherhood 
of  God,  in  the  ethical  value  of  personality,  in  the 
ultimate  righteousness  of  the  world-order,  we 
are  constrained  to  believe  in  immortality,  and 
in  virtue  of  this  belief  we  are  unable  to  with- 
hold our  acceptance  of  the  Pauline  testimony 

lVol.  II,  p.  288   (italics  are  mine). 


DID  JESUS  RISE  FROM  THE  DEAD?   131 

that  by  means  of  a  truth-telling,  objectively 
valid  vision,  Jesus  Christ  manifested  Himself 
on  this  earth  to  hundreds  of  witnesses.  Thus 
by  our  different  relations  in  time  to  the  histori- 
cal fact,  our  spiritual  relations  cannot  but  be 
affected,  so  that  while  the  early  Christian  in- 
ferred immortality  from  the  Resurrection,  we, 
on  the  contrary,  can  believe  in  the  Resurrection 
because  we  already  believe  in  immortality. 
While  this  is  true,  is  it  not  also  true  that  his- 
torically belief  in  Christ's  victory  over  death 
has  had  a  powerful  influence  in  putting  at  the 
very  heart  of  the  Christian  message  the  mighty 
hope  of  an  endless  life1?  For  many  centuries, 
the  belief  in  some  kind  of  existence  beyond  the 
grave  was  practically  universal.  Homer,  Plato, 
Virgil,  the  Old  Testament  prophets  and  his- 
torians testify  to  the  popular  belief  in  a  world 
of  shades,  pale  phantoms,  flitting  about  in 
Stygian  gloom  and  sadness.  Such  a  life — if  life 
it  could  be  called — was  no  object  of  desire  to 
any  rational  being.  It  was  man's  fate,  the  doom 
decreed  for  him  by  the  inscrutable  will  of 
Heaven.  He  looked  forward  to  it  with  fear  and 
repulsion.  It  was  literally  true  to  say  that  all 
his  lifetime  he  was  subject  to  bondage  through 
fear  of  death.  But  suddenly  the  dread  gave  way 
to  desire.  Wherever  the  Christian  message  was 


132  THE  FUTURE  LIFE 

accepted,  the  entire  psychological  climate  of 
the  soul  was  reversed,  and  the  life  beyond  be- 
came an  object  of  love  and  longing  and  aspira- 
tion. This  is  the  indubitable  fact  of  history. 
And  the  explanation  is  at  hand.  The  person- 
ality and  career  of  Jesus  Christ  had  brought 
home  to  the  human  heart  the  love  of  God  as  a 
reality  which  created  a  new  heaven  and  a  new 
earth,  which  energized  as  a  mighty  power  of 
redemption  in  the  lives  of  men.  The  tragedy  of 
the  Crucifixion  seemed  to  eclipse  this  wondrous 
sun  that  had  for  a  space  illumined  their  uni- 
verse. But  with  the  reappearance  of  their  de- 
parted Master,  the  love  which  had  shone  forth 
in  His  earthly  life  now  rises  in  new  majesty, 
reveals  its  invincible  greatness  and  indestruc- 
tible force  in  that  death  had  to  give  way  before 
it.  Wherever  Christ  is,  love  is.  Whatever 
world  He  inhabits,  it  is  filled  with  the  sunshine 
of  goodness,  self-sacrifice,  and  glory  unspeak- 
able. Hence  there  came  into  the  conception  of 
the  life  to  come  a  definiteness,  a  certainty,  and 
a  desirableness  which  had  been  hitherto  un- 
known. And  even  yet  simple  and  devout  souls 
throughout  Christendom  rest  on  this  tradition 
in  childlike  faith,  and  have  an  assurance  and 
inward  freedom  which  more  critical  natures 
often  envy.  To  the  average  man  there  is  a 


DID  JESUS  RISE  FROM  TPIE  DEAD?  133 

weakness  in  all  our  arguments.  Elaborate 
reasonings,  conclusions  extracted  painfully 
from  premises  which  are  open  to  debate,  ap- 
pear bloodless  and  remote  from  reality.  Over 
against  them  stands  the  dark  and  chilling  fact 
of  the  apparently  unbroken  silence  of  the  ages. 
"Thousands  of  generations,"  says  Carlyle,  "all 
as  noisy  as  our  own,  have  been  swallowed  up  of 
time,  and  there  remains  no  wreck  of  them  any 
more,  and  Pleiades  and  Arcturus  and  Orion  and 
Sirius  are  still  shining  in  their  courses  as  when 
the  shepherd  first  noted  them  on  the  plains  of 
Shinar. '  * 

It  cannot  be  denied  that  one  authentic  in- 
stance of  a  traveller  returned  from  the  land 
of  spirits  would  outweigh  a  thousand  specula- 
tive arguments  which  seem  weak  as  gossamer 
threads  to  the  soul  face  to  face  with  death  and 
the  dark  unknown.  The  believer  in  the  Chris- 
tian story  holds  that  in  one  signal  case  the  ever- 
lasting silence  has  been  broken,  and  his  faith  in 
immortality  wins  thereby  an  intensity  and  a 
clearness  which  otherwise  would  be  impossible. 
But  what  about  non-Christians,  devout  Jews, 
Buddhists?  This  argument  cannot  find  them. 
What  it  gains  in  intension,  it  loses  in  ex- 
tension. Indeed  the  argument  from  Resurrec- 
tion to  immortality  as  developed  by  Paul  is 


134  THE  FUTURE  LIFE 

concerned  only  with  those  who  have  identified 
themselves  in  thought  and  life  with  Jesus 
Christ.  It  does  not  touch  the  case  of  men  in 
general.  His  reasoning  is  not:  "Jesus  ross 
from  the  dead  and  reappeared  on  earth,  there- 
fore all  men  are  immortal,"  but  it  is  this: 
"  Jesus,  as  the  Head  of  a  new  humanity  mys- 
tically united  to  Him  by  faith  and  a  common 
spiritual  life,  rose  again,  and  therein  is  the 
pledge  and  guarantee  that  His  members  shall 
also  rise  again."  But  this  mystical  doctrine  is 
too  high  even  for  the  great  majority  of  Chris- 
tians and  to  those  who  have  been  bred  on  a 
different  tradition  and  within  a  different  fellow- 
ship, it  is  quite  unintelligible.  (TSut  immortality 
belongs  to  man  as  man,  though  its  spiritual 
quality,  its  blessedness  or  the  reverse,  will  be 
determined  by  the  presence  or  absence  of 
Christlike  virtues  and  graces,  themselves  the 
proof  that  God  has  not  left  Himself  without  a 
witness  in  any  human  spirit) 

What,  then,  is  the  real  significance  of  Christ's 
Resurrection  for  belief  in  an  immortal  life? 
What  is  its  message  to  men  in  general?  It 
offers  not  only  proof  of  survival  but  more  par- 
ticularly it  makes  survival  worth  while,  an  end 
to  be  desired.  All  the  higher  religions  imply  a 
doctrine  of  immortality,  a  belief  that  the  soul 


DID  JESUS  RISE  FROM  THE  DEAD?    135 

lives  on  after  the  physical  organism  has  per- 
ished, or  as  in  the  Judaism  of  Christ's  day,  that 
it  lives  in  the  old  body,  with  all  its  defects  and 
weaknesses,  reanimated  and  supernaturally  re- 
stored from  the  dust  of  the  grave.  But  what  the 
Resurrection  of  Christ  offers  to  him  who  can 
accept  it  is  the  possibility  that  every  righteous 
man,  every  one  who  cleaves  to  what  he  per- 
ceives to  be  best,  will  not  only  live  on  in  the 
other  world  but  will  win  a  new  embodiment,  a 
fit  medium  for  nobler  and  more  unimpeded  ac- 
tivities, and  for  the  enjoyment  of  those  per- 
sonal relationships  which  constitute  a  truly 
human  life.  It  is  a  revelation  not  merely  of 
the  fact  of  survival  but  of  its  nature  as  no 
ghostly  or  abstract  continuance  after  death,  as 
rather  a  truly  concrete,  rich,  and  manifold 
human  life.  Apart  from  this  revelation  we  may 
conceive  of  the  future  life  in  the  manner  of  the 
ultra-idealist  as  an  abstract  stream  of  con- 
sciousness functioning  in  the  absolute  or  as  an 
idea  persisting  in  the  Divine  mind  or  as  a  series 
of  mental  images  connected  with  an  atom  which 
cannot  be  destroyed.  But  ordinary  healthy 
human  nature  has  no  interest  in  such  a  future. 
These  bloodless  categories  may,  perhaps,  seem 
a  very  Paradise  to  the  philosopher;  it  is  to  be 
feared  that  to  the  great  mass  of  non-philosophi- 


136  THE  FUTURE  LIFE 

cal  humanity,  they  would  offer  an  exceedingly 
uninteresting  prospect,  so  much  so,  indeed,  that 
men  generally  would  be  inclined  to  say :  Rather 
no  future  at  all,  rather  blank  non-existence  than 
a  future  such  as  these  theories  imply.  It  is  in- 
deed a  curious  situation  in  which  modern 
thought  in  regard  to  the  problem  of  the  after- 
life finds  itself.  As  in  ancient  times  popular 
beliefs  robbed  the  future  world  of  all  interest 
and  value,  so  is  it  today  with  much  of  our  most 
respected  philosophy.  It,  too,  makes  the  future 
after  death  abstract,  dreary,  and  far  from  ap- 
petizing. The  world  beyond  the  grave  was 
peopled  according  to  ancient  imagination  with 
vague,  weak,  ineffectual  shades ;  the  same  world, 
according  to  some  of  our  most  venerated  pro- 
fessors of  philosophy,  is  the  theatre  of  an  "un- 
earthly ballet "  of  the  thinnest  abstractions  ever 
spun  by  human  brains.  In  both  cases,  the  future 
life,  ceasing  to  interest,  ceases  to  stir  hope  or 
provide  stimulus  or  affect  life  at  any  point. 
The  Christian  message  where  accepted  restores 
the  interest,  for  it  interprets  the  life  to  come  as 
not  less  but  more  than  the  present  life,  as  a 
state  of  being  analogous  to  our  present  exist- 
ence but  richer,  fuller,  intenser,  involving  a 
very  plenitude  of  emotional  and  intellectual 
activity,  and  of  an  ever-ascending  range  of 


; 


social  relationships.    Christ  came  back  from  the 

undiscovered  country  to  this  living  world  as  a 

friend  would  visit  friends,  to  reassure  them,  to 

/  say  that  all  was  well,  nay  more,  that  their  hopes 

1  ,'2  were  far  below  the  sublime  reality.  Henceforth 
that  other  world  meant  for  them  far  more  than 
it  had  ever  done  before.  They  carried  over  into 
it  all  the  wonder  and  the  glory,  all  the  beauty 
and  the  gladness,  all  the  satisfaction  to  heart 

L  and  mind  which  His  ministry  among  them  had 
wrought.  Is  it  any  wonder  that  they  found  the 
true  home  of  the  soul  where  lived  their  heart's 
love  and  admiration?  The  world  of  the  dead  no 
longer  struck  a  chill  to  their  souls  when  they 
thought  of  it.  On  the  contrary,  it  flung  upon 
them  a  great  fascination,  and  inspired  them 
with  an  ardent  longing.  It  may  be  that  here 
is  the  open  door  through  which  Christianity  may 
enter  and  repeat  its  ancient  triumphs.  (Intake 
the  future  life  the  realization  of  a  man's  ideal 
strivings,  the  embodiment  of  all  his  highest 
aspirations,  and  it  will  become  an  object  of 
desire,  something  for  which  he  will  surrender 
all  lesser  luresj  And  among  these  aspirations 
can  there  be  any  more  worthy  of  the  soul  than 
the  desire  for  intimate  communion  with  these 
higher  and  more  spiritual  intelligences  that 
have  blessed  the  world  with  their  presence  and 


138  THE  FUTURE  LIFE 

work  in  it?  Such  is  the  thought  of  one  of  the 
greatest  minds  of  the  nineteenth  century.  "We 
shall,"  says  Fechner,  "enter  into  close  fellow- 
ship with  the  great  spirits  of  those  who  lived, 
in  their  second  stage  of  life,  long  before  us,  but 
whose  great  example  and  wisdom  served  to 
form  our  own  minds.  Thus  he  who  lived  here 
entirely  in  Christ  will  be  entirely  in  Christ  here- 
after; nor  is  his  individuality  to  be  extinguished 
within  a  higher  individuality;  nay,  he  will  be 
established,  and  receive  new  strength,  and  at 
the  same  time  be  able  to  strengthen  others. ' ' l 
To  sum  up:  the  signal  contribution  which 
Jesus  Christ  has  made  to  the  teaching  about 
immortality  was  wrought,  partly,  by  the  revela- 
tion during  His  earthly  career  of  what  consti- 
tuted the  immortal  life  in  the  highest  sense  of 
the  term,  the  sharing  in  qualities  which  are  by 
their  nature  deathless,  faith,  hope,  love,  peace, 
and  their  allied  graces;  and  partly,  by  His 
triumph  over  deatli  and  self-manifestation  in 
glorified  form  to  the  eyes  and  hearts  of  those 
who  had  loved  Him  and  had  mourned  His  tragic 
end.  His  return  from  the  realms  of  the  dead 
was  not  necessary  to  persuade  them  of  survival ; 
like  all  pious  people  of  the  time,  they  believed 
in  a  post-mortem  existence.  But  it  was  neces- 

1  On  Life  After  Death,  p.  67. 


DID  JESUS  RISE  FROM  THE  DEAD?   139 

sary  to  dissipate  the  vagueness  and  uncertainty 
of  their  ideas,  to  reassure  them,  to  make  clear 
that  the  life  to  come  is  a  higher  stage  in  the 
development  of  the  human  spirit  for  all  who 
here  aspire  and  strive.  Because  of  this  revela- 
tion it  seemed  to  them  that  Christ  was  the 
bringer  of  real  immortality,  and  strong  in  this 
mighty  hope  they  despised  death,  even  though  it 
came  to  them  in  forms  the  very  thought  of  which 
makes  the  blood  run  cold  in  our  veins  today,  and 
they  revolutionized  the  civilization  of  the  em- 
pire and  set  in  motion  forces  which  have  exer- 
cised incalculable  influence  on  the  moral  life  of 
humanity.  Throughout  all  the  Christian  cen- 
turies myriads  of  men  and  women  have  found  in 
death  no  longer  an  enemy  but  a  friend,  the 
opener  of  the  gate  through  which  the  soul 
passes  to  the  fulfilment  of  its  dearest  hopes, 
the  fruition  of  its  strivings  and  strugglings 
here  below. 


CHAPTER  VHI 

THE    ARGUMENT    FROM    PSYCHICAL    RESEARCH 

A  LITTLE  while  ago  it  was  possible  to  write 
about  immortality  without  deeming  it  neces- 
sary to  acknowledge,  except,  perhaps,  by  a 
perfunctory  allusion,  the  existence  of  the 
Psychical  Research  movement  inaugurated  for 
the  investigation  of  certain  obscure  and  ab- 
normal phenomena  which  have  been  generally 
relegated  to  the  sphere  of  superstition  and 
hysteria.  But,  as  some  of  the  finest  and  most 
acute  minds  of  this  generation  have  concluded 
that  when  a  critical  sifting  has  done  its  work, 
there  is  left  a  solid  block  of  evidence  not 
capable  of  any  "naturalistic"  explanation,  we 
can  no  longer  ignore  the  facts  or  smile  away 
the  interpretation  which  competent  students 
have  put  upon  them.  Yet  if  it  were  possible 
one  might  be  well  content  to  pass  the  subject 
by,  for  among  all  the  bewildering  and  perplex- 
ing problems  that  have  ever  taxed  human  wits, 
unquestionably  this  problem  takes  a  pre- 
eminent place.  Indeed,  it  seems  presumptuous 

140 


-  r 

y  ' 

THE  ARGUMENT  FROM  RESEARCH    141 

for  any  one  who  has  not  spent  many  years  on 
personal  investigation  to  offer  any  judgment 
as  to  its  meaning  and  worth.  Psychical  re- 
search may  be,  as  many  think,  absurd,  but  the 
way  in  which  its  arguments  are  often  answered 
is  still  more  absurd.  Sneers,  ridicule,  a  priori 
dogmatism,  such  mouth-filling  phrases  as  "a 
recrudescence  of  mediaeval  superstitution, " 
"a  scandal  and  a  disgrace"  to  the  fair  name 
of  science — such  things  are  the  fruit  of  igno- 
rance and  prejudice.  Could  anything  be  more 
preposterous  than  the  dictum  of  the  late  Pro- 
fessor  Miinsterberg  that  the  evidential  tacts 
alleged  by  psychical  research  not  only  do  not 
exist  but  can  never  exist !  And  what  are  we  to 
say  of  the  curt  dismissal  of  the  whole  question 
by  Professor  A.  E.  Taylor,  member  of  the 
British  Academy,  as  one  of  fraud  or  thought- 
transference,  or  if  these  theories  break  down, 
of  possible  demoniacal  possession."1  Pro- 
fessor Taylor  does  not  stay  to  ask  what  he 
means  by  thought-transference,  whether  and  to 
what  extent  such  a  theory  has  been  proved,  how 
the  proving  of  fraud  in  one  psychic  can  dis- 
prove honesty  and  high  character  in  another, 
nor  finally  does  he  reflect  whether  the  activity 
of  evil  spirits  may  not  make  credible  the 

1  See  The  Faith  and  the  War,  p.  136. 


Att 

U2  ~THE  FUTUR^  LIFE 


-.  . 

counter-activity  of  good  spirits.  The  truth  is 
the  philosopher  and  the  man  of  science  enter- 
tain a  certain  general  view  of  the  world  with 
which  these  alleged  facts  are  incompatible; 
therefore,  there  is  a  tendency  to  argue  that  the 
facts  themselves  are  unworthy  of  notice  and 
ought  to  be  set  aside  without  more  ado. 

Mr.  Edward  Clodd,  in  his  book  //  a  Man  Die 
Shall  He  Live  Again?,  gives  a  list  of  mediums 
detected  in  fraud  and  infers  that  all  the 
phenomena  of  spiritualism  are  the  work  of 
trickery  and  deception.  He  fails  to  notice,  how- 
ever, that  while  some  mediums  have  been  proved 
guilty  of  deliberate  and  wilful  deception,  others 
in  the  light  of  fuller  knowledge  can  be  charged 
only  with  unconscious  simulation  of  fraudulent 
behaviour.  But  what  is  more  important,  Mr. 
Clodd,  with  all  his  claims  to  scientific  method, 
omits  to  supply  a  list  of  ''sensitives"  whose 
honesty  has  been  placed  beyond  all  dispute 
by  critical  guardianship  extended  over  many 
years.  The  fact  appears  to  be  that  this 
writer  approaches  the  subject  with  a  mind 
already  prejudiced  against  the  spiritistic  doc- 
trine. 

So,  too,  with  the  theologian.  As  a  rule  he 
approaches  the  question  with  certain  theories 
as  to  the  future  life  in  the  back  of  his  mind 


THE  ARGUMENT  FROM  RESEARCH    143 

and  as  the  methods  and  results  of  psychical 
research  appear  to  conflict  with  these  precon- 
ceived ideas  he  holds  himself  excused  from 
ovi-n  examining  what  may  be  said  in  their 
favour.  This,  of  course,  is  not  true  of  all  the 
"representatives  of  religion.  The  greatest  liv- 
ing philosophical  divine  in  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land protests  against  rejecting  the  support 
which  may  be  given  alike  to  the  Resurrection 
of  Christ  and  to  the  resurrection  of  all  men  by 
"sifted  and  well-attested  evidence  of  more  or 
less  analogous  appearances  of  the  dead  or  the 
dying  to  their  friends."1  The  great  majority 
of  scientists  and  theologians  have  built  up  out 
of  their  favourite  conceptions  distinct  systems 
of  thought  by  which  they  picture  to  themselves 
the  universe.  The  question,  of  course,  is:  Are 
these  systems  final  or  must  they  not  be  so  modi- 
fied as  to  include  the  new  phenomena,  if  these 
phenomena  can  be  proved  to  be  genuine?  The 
modern  spirit  has  small  patience  with  dog- 
matism and  finalities  of  any  kind.  Its  watch- 
word rather  is,  nothing  is  impossible,  except 
the  self-contradictory.  The  advocates  of  re- 
ligious faith  should  take  warning  from  his- 
tory. There  are  two  questions  about  which 
man's  curiosity  can  not  be  stilled.  These  are: 

1  Hastings  Rashdall,  Doctrine  and  Development,  p.  180. 


144  THE  FUTURE  LIFE 

Whence  has  he  come?  and  Whither  is  he  going? 
When  Darwin  published  his  Origin  of  Species 
in  1859,  the  theological  world  was  shaken  to 
its  foundations.  No  lover  of  truth  can  look 
back  on  that  controversy  without  a  sense  of 
shame  and  humiliation.  Today  all  men  find  in 
Evolution  a  master-key  of  knowledge,  and  be- 
cause of  it  we  understand  religion  itself  better 
than  we  have  ever  understood  it  before.  It  is 
a  painful  reflection  that  the  very  arguments 
launched  against  the  teaching  of  Darwin  a  gen- 
eration ago  are  being  refurbished  to  do  duty 
against  the  teaching  of  Sir  Oliver  Lodge  and 
Professor  Barrett.  Only  the  other  day  there 
was  published  the  report  of  an  address  by  a 
popular  preacher,  in  Avhich  he  lifted  a  warning 
voice  against  the  work  of  the  Psychical  Re- 
search Society  on  the  ground  that  it  is  under- 
mining the  foundations  of  the  Christian  re- 

*"  ,  ligion  and  making  the  Creeds  of  none  effect. 
"  He  does  not  stay  to  ask — What  is  the  Christian 
religion?  Nor  does  he  inquire  whether  the  tra- 
ditional interpretation  of  the  Creeds  is  a  per- 
manently adequate  and  final  presentation  of 
spiritual  truth.  It  is  the  old  appeal  to  author- 
ity against  the  claims  of  a  Divine  and  progress- 
ive revolution.  There  is  a  saying  of  Samuel 

n        Taylor  Coleridge  which  that  great  writer  com- 


THE  ARGUMENT  FROM  RESEARCH    145 

mends  as  worthy  to  be  framed  and  hung  up  in 
the  library  of  every  student  of  religion:  ''He 
who  begins  by  loving  Christianity  better  than 
Truth  will  proceed  by  loving  his  own  Sect  or 
Church  better  than  Christianity,  and  end  in 
loving  himself  better  than  all. ' ' *  Unhappily, 
the  scientific  movement  has  in  the  popular  mind 
been  confused  with  the  unscientific  cult  of 
spiritualism.  This  is  one  of  the  main  reasons 
why,  as  compared  with  Great  Britain,  America 
lags  so  far  behind  in  the  investigation  of  these 
abnormal  incidents.  The  average  spiritualist 
is  an  exceedingly  credulous  person,  too  much 
governed  by  the  emotional  interests  in  the  life 
beyond  and  prone  to  construct  out  of  doubtful 
material  a  very  portentous  edifice.  The  cre- 
dulity, the  intellectual  incoherence  and  lack  of 
proportion,  and  the  deception  and  self-decep- 
tion with  which  the  history  of  spiritualism  has 
been  disgraced  have  created  a  general  preju- 
dice against  the  whole  subject.  It  is  most  un- 
fortunate that  the  term  "spiritualism"  should 
not  have  been  confined  to  the  cult  that  bears 
that  name  and  that  the  term  "spiritism"  should 
not  have  been  reserved  for  the  scientific  move- 
ment. One  of  the  favourite  devices  of  the 
critic  is  to  lump  together  "spiritualism"  as  a 

1  Aids  to  Reflection,  Aphorism  LXIII. 


146  THE  FUTURE  LIFE 

religion  and  ''spiritism"  as  a  scientific  theory 
advanced  in  explanation  of  certain  psychic 
phenomena.  Psychical  researchers  are  all 
branded  as  "gullible"  and  "credulous,"  they 
insist,  and  the  fruit  of  their  toil  is  declared  to 
be  "nauseating  dribble"  and  "banal  inanity." 
Of  course,  the  answer  is  at  hand.  Among  the 
men  of  whom  these  things  are  said  are  A.  J. 
Balfour,  Sir  W.  F.  Barrett,  William  James, 
and  Henri  Bergson.  'JittjttA  ^0-dfi  c 

One  of  the  most  impressive  facts  in  the  his- 
tory of  psychic  research  is  this  power  to  con- 
vert hard-headed  and  sceptical  and  even  mate- 
rialistically-minded men  to  views  which  the 
popular  mind  denounces  as  "soft,"  "supersti- 
tious," "absurd."  The  most  recent  example 
of  this  transforming  power  is  seen  in  the  well- 
known  novelist,  Sir  Arthur  Conan  Doyle,  who, 
in  his  book,  The  New  Revelation,  tells  his 
experiences : 

"When  I  had  finished  my  medical  education 
in  1882,  I  found  myself,  like  many  young 
medical  men,  a  convinced  materialist  as  re- 
gards our  personal  destiny.  I  had  never  ceased 
to  be  an  earnest  theist,  because  it  seemed  to 
me  that  Napoleon's  question  to  the  atheistic 
professors  on  the  starry  night  as  he  voyaged 
to  Egypt:  'Who  was  it,  gentlemen,  who  made 


THE  ARGUMENT  FROM  RESEARCH    147 

these  stars?'  has  never  been  answered.  To  say 
that  the  Universe  was  made  by  immutable  laws 
only  put  the  question  one  degree  further  back 
as  to  who  made  the  laws.  Q  did  not,  of  course, 
believe  in  an  anthropomorphic  God,  but  I  be- 
lieved then,  as  I  believe  now,  in  an  intelligent 
Force  behind  all  the  operations  of  Nature — a 
force  so  infinitely  complex  and  great  that  my 
finite  brain  could  get  no  further  than  its 
existence.")  Right  and  wrong  I  saw  also  as 
great  obvious  facts  which  needed  no  divine 
revelation.  But  when  it  came  to  a  question  of 
our  little  personalities  surviving  death,  it 
seemed  to  me  that  the  whole  analogy  of  Nature 
was  against  it.  When  the  candle  burns  out  the 
light  disappears.  When  the  electric  cell  is 
shattered  the  current  stops.  When  the  body 
dissolves  there  is  an  end  of  the  matter.  Each 
man  in  his  egotism  may  feel  that  he  ought  to 
survive,  but  let  him  look,  we  will  say,  at  the 
average  loafer — of  high  or  low  degree — would 
any  one  contend  that  there  was  any  obvious 
reason  why  that  personality  should  carry  on? 
It  seemed  to  be  a  delusion,  and  I  was  con- 
vinced that  death  did  indeed  end  all,  though  I 
saw  no  reason  why  that  should  affect  our  duty 
towards  humanity  during,  our  transitory 
existence. 


148  THE  FUTURE  LIFE 

"This  was  my  frame  of  mind  when  Spiritual 
phenomena  first  came  before  my  notice. ' ' 1 

Or  take  the  experience  of  the  late  F.  W.  H. 
Myers.  He  began  life  as  an  earnest  believer 
in  traditional  Christianity,  only,  however,  to 
find  that  later  reflection  dissolved  away  the 
structure  of  his  faith.  The  point  at  which  he 
especially  felt  the  weakness  of  his  position,  was 
the  question  of  immortality.  He  became  an 
agnostic  as  to  a  life  after  death,  but  deter- 
mined, however,  to  leave  no  stone  unturned 
in  his  quest  for  assurance.  He  turned  to 
psychical  research.  Years  of  self-sacrifice 
and  laborious  effort  were  at  last  rewarded: 
"It  is  only  after  thirty  years  of  such  study 
as  I  have  been  able  to  give  that  I  say  to  myself 
at  last,  Habes  totd  quod  mente  petisti — 'Thou 
hast  what  thy  whole  heart  desired'; — that  I 
recognize  that  for  me  this  fresh  evidence, — 
while  raising  that  great  historic  incident  of  the 
Resurrection  into  new  credibility, — has  also 
filled  me  with  a  sense  of  insight  and  of  thank- 
fulness such  as  even  my  first  ardent  Chris- 
tianity did  not  bestow." 2 

Dr.  James  H.  Hyslop,  the  devoted  secretary 
of  the  American  Society  for  Psychical  Re- 

1  The  New  Revelation,  by  Sir  Arthur  Conan  Doyle,  pp.  14-16. 
*  Proceedings  of  the  English  S.P.R.,  part  XXXVII,  p.  114. 


THE  ARGUMENT  FROM  RESEARCH    149 

search,  has  placed  on  record  the  story  of  his 
failure  to  find  satisfaction  in  the  traditional 
faith  of  his  home  and  his  resolute  search  for  an 
abiding  foundation  on  which  to  build  his  life : 

1  'But  scarcely  had  those  feelings  shaped 
themselves  into  resolution  when  the  chilling 
breath  of  scepticism  came  to  cool  the  ardour 
of  my  hopes.  The  first  step  in  this  direction 
was  the  discovered  need  for  me  of  revised 
biblical  interpretation  enforced  by  a  little  sec- 
tarian controversy  about  amending  the  Con- 
stitution of  the  United  States  in  favour  of 
certain  religious  acknowledgments.  The  fatal 
chapter,  however,  fixing  doubt  beyond  recovery 
was  that  on  the  Incarnation  and  the  Resurrec- 
tion in  Barnes's  Evidences  of  Christianity. 
Faith  might  have  had  its  way  had  it  not  sub- 
mitted its  claims  to  proof.  The  very  gibes  of 
religious  fanatics  and  cartoonists  against  the 
doctrine  of  Darwin  strengthened  it  in  my  sight, 
and  every  discovery  of  geology,  of  physiology, 
and  of  psychology  pointed  to  only  one  conclu- 
sion, that  of  materialism.  I  accepted  it,  not 
because  it  was  a  desirable  philosophy,  but  be- 
cause the  evidence  of  fact  was  on  its  side,  and 
neither  the  illusions  of  idealism  nor  the  inter- 
ests of  religious  hope  were  sufficient  to  tempt 
me  into  a  career  of  hypocrisy  and  cowardice.  I 


150  THE  FUTURE  LIFE 

had  to  temporize  with  many  a  situation  until  I 
could  assure  my  own  mind  where  it  stood.  In 
the  pursuit  of  some  final  truth  on  which  to  base 
a  life  work  I  passed  through  all  the  labyrinths 
of  philosophy,  losing  nothing  and  gaining  noth- 
ing in  its  meshes.  After  Plato  and  Aristotle 
it  seemed  to  lose  its  moorings  in  facts  and  lived 
on  tradition  and  authority.  New  discoveries 
and  reconstruction  it  despised  as  it  would  the 
occupation  of  neophytes  and  children.  At  last 
I  was  directed  to  the  idealism  of  Kant  for  light 
and  found  there  a  system  as  helpless  as  it  was 
mystifying,  though  it  had  been  born  in  the 
atmosphere  of  Swedenborg's  distinction  be- 
tween the  transcendental  and  the  phenomenal 
and  of  which  it  soon  became  ashamed.  In  it 
the  bankruptcy  of  philosophy  was  the  oppor- 
tunity of  science,  and  in  a  favourable,  though 
accidental  moment  my  attention  was  attracted 
by  psychic  research  in  which  the  first  prospect 
of  crucial  facts  presented  itself. 

"However  satisfactory  philosophy  had  been 
in  showing  that  the  meaning  of  the  cosmos  was 
to  be  found  in  the  supersensible,  whether  by 
idealism  or  atomic  materialism,  the  more  exact- 
ing method  of  science,  which  had  strengthened 
the  claims  of  physical  law  and  causes  and 
which  became  the  standard  of  truth,  made  it 


necessary  to  regard  the  residual  phenomena 
of  human  experience,  if  only  to  corroborate  the 
inferences  which  idealism  had  drawn  from  the 
normal.  In  fact,  whatever  the  validity  of 
the  older  views  as  possible  constructions  of 
the  world,  their  probability  was  lost  in  the  face 
of  the  certitudes  of  science  which  had  multi- 
plied evidence  for  the  extension  of  physical 
explanations,  and  religion  had  to  turn  to  the 
residual  phenomena  of  life,  as  it  had  once  done, 
to  vindicate  its  aspirations  and  interpretation 
of  the  cosmos.  It  does  not  yet  clearly  see  the 
direction  from  which  its  light  is  to  come.  But 
in  the  accumulation  of  facts  within  the  field  of 
supernormal  phenomena  I  found  the  dawn  of 
another  day  for  an  idealism  that  will  last  as 
long  as  scientific  method  can  claim  respect."1 
The  problem  of  immortality  as  formulated 
by  psychical  research  ought  to  be  carefully 
noted.  Failure  to  keep  this  formulation  in 
view  has  led  both  the  average  man  and  the 
critical  student  into  much  misdirected  antago- 
nism. The  psychical  researcher  takes  up  the 
question  as  it  has  been  shaped  by  modern  ma- 
terialism, which  simply  asserts  that  normally 
we  know  consciousness  only  in  connection  with 

1  Psychical   Research   and   the   Resurrection,   by   James   H. 
Hyslop,  pp.  406-408. 


152  THE  FUTURE  LIFE 

a  physical  organism,  and  we  cease  to  find  any 
trace  of  consciousness  as  soon  as  the  organism 
perishes.  As  death  marks  the  cessation  of  all 
other  functions  of  the  body,  why  should  con- 
sciousness be  an  exception?  We  do  not,  indeed, 
know  what  consciousness  is,  but  neither  do  we 
know  what  matter  is;  and  materialism  main- 
tains that  science  is  concerned  primarily  not 
with  the  ultimate  constitution  of  either  but 
with  the  relation  in  which  the  one  stands  to  the 
other.  Wherever  we  have  mind  we  have  a 
physical  organism;  with  the  dissolution  of  the 
organism,  mind  ceases  to  manifest  itself,  and 
the  natural  inference  is  that  it  ceases  to  exist. 
To  the  convinced  materialist,  therefore,  a  fu- 
ture life  is  an  absurdity. 

Now  it  is  at  this  stage  that  the  psychical 
researcher  comes  upon  the  scene.  He  says  to 
the  materialist:  "I  accept  your  argument  and  I 
propose  to  give  you  such  evidence  as  will  con- 
vince all  rational  persons  that  individual  con- 
sciousness does  persist  after  death.  This  I 
shall  do  by  opening  up  a  channel  of  communi- 
cation whereby  we  may  get  into  touch  with  a 
particular  consciousness  which  may  prove  its 
identity  by  recalling  its  earthly  memories,  and 
may  satisfy  us  that  we  are  not  listening  to  the 
echoes  of  our  own  thoughts  but  to  the  veritable 


THE  ARGUMENT  FROM  RESEARCH    153 

experiences  of  a  personality  which  was  once 
alive  on  earth  and  now  survives  in  another 
state  of  being."  This  is  what  psychical  re- 
search claims  to  do.  Whether  it  has  justified 
its  claim  is  open  to  dispute;  but,  at  all  events, 
we  must  not  blame  it  for  failing  to  do  what  it 
has  never  pretended  to  do.  It  does  not  profess 
to  make  clear  the  nature  of  the  other  world, 
nor  its  mode  of  existence.  It  throws  no  light 
on  the  occupations  of  surviving  personalities, 
nor  does  it  offer  to  solve  a  multitude  of  ques- 
tions which  religion  and  philosophy  propound. 
In  brief,  it  sets  aside  all  speculation  for  the 
time,  and  concentrates  on  the  task  of  obtaining 
from  deceased  persons  such  information  as  will 
identify  them  with  personalities  known  to  have 
lived  amongst  us.  This  information  must  be 
of  such  a  character  as  not  to  be  explicable  by 
any  normal  channel  of  communication  and  it 
must  consist  of  such  incidents  or  facts  as  are 
verifiable  and  thus  capable  of  proving  the 
identity  of  discarnate  intelligences,  if  such 
there  be. 

It  is  here  that  so  much  disappointment  is 
experienced.  We  plough  our  way  through  a 
disheartening  mass  of  trivial  and  incoherent 
details  which  seem  to  argue  that  persons  of 
known  ability  and  acumen  while  on  earth  have 


154  THE  FUTURE  LIFE 

undergone  a  sad  deterioration  since  they 
crossed  the  boundaries  of  the  other  world.  If 
indeed  these  individuals  who  claim  to  speak  to 
us  from  the  other  world  are  what  they  profess 
to  be,  why  do  they  convey  to  us  no  authentic 
tidings  of  their  new  environment,  why  do  they 
not  throw  light  on  the  vital  problems  of  our 
present  existence,  on  such  a  question,  for 
example,  as  the  real  relation  of  mind  and  body? 
If  the  life  in  the  other  world  is  to  be  judged 
from  the  Proceedings  of  the  Society,  it  must 
be  pronounced  flat,  stale,  and  unprofitable.  So 
it  would  seem,  and  yet  on  further  thought  we 
may  have  to  set  aside  these  questionings  as 
irrelevant.  Why  should  we  suppose  that  the 
transition  to  the  realm  beyond  death  marks  an 
access  of  insight  into  the  problems  of  our 
earthly  life?  Further,  if  the  experts  of  the/ 
Society  are  looking  not  for  revelations  of\ 
supernal  truth  but  for  trivial  details  of  earthly 
experience  so  as  to  establish  the  identity  of  the 
presumed  communicator,  the  very  insignifi- 
cance of  the  messages  may  turn  out  to  be  a 
point  in  their  favour.  And  as  to  information 
about  the  nature  of  the  other  life,  we  may 
doubt  whether  it  could  be  given  us  on  this 
material  plane,  except  in  a  misleading  form; 
and  if  it  were  given,  how  is  it  to  be  verified? 


THE  ARGUMENT  FROM  RESEARCH    155 

For  example,  "George  Pelham,"  the  most  con- 
vincing of  all  the  communicators,  told  Dr. 
Richard  Hodgson,  through  Mrs.  Piper,  that 
the  organism  with  which  the  departing  spirit 
is  supplied  is  made  of  luminiferous  ether — an 
intensely  interesting  and  valuable  bit  of  infor- 
mation, if  true!  But  how  do  we  know  that  it 
is  true1?  Had  Mrs.  Piper  never  heard  of  the 
Epicurean  notion  of  an  "ethereal"  body?  Is 
it  not  an  easy  supposition  that  her  subcon- 
sciousness  reproduced  this  doctrine,  accrediting 
it  to  George  Pelham?  In  any  case,  we  have  no 
means  of  proving  or  disproving  the  statement. 
And  the  same  remark  may  be  applied  to  the 
inspirational  utterances  with  which  spiritual- 
istic literature  abounds.  In  so  far  as  they  are 
in  harmony  with  received  ideas,  they  may  be 
taken  as  a  reflection  of  the  psychic's  own 
thought,  in  so  far  as  they  are  not  verifiable, 
they  are  useless  as  evidence,  though,  for  aught 
we  can  tell,  they  may  be  true.  What  is  wanted 
is  not  revelations  of  the  future  state  for  which 
we  have  no  test  of  reality,  but  memories  of 
earthly  experiences  open  to  inquiry  and  verifi- 
cation. J  There  is  one  very  important  fact  about 
the  other  world — if  it  be  a  fact — concerning 
which  there  is  practical  unanimity  among  the 
best  accredited  psychics.  N  Souls  leave  this 


156  THE  FUTURE  LIFE 

world  in  all  stages  of  moral  and  intellectual 
growth.  In  the  world  beyond,  there  is,  we  are 
told,  a  vast  amount  of  missionary  activity 
going  on,  the  more  developed  helping  and 
encouraging  those  of  lesser  attainments,  and 
all  spirits  finding  scope  and  room  for  the  ever- 
lasting play  of  self-sacrifice.  Now  it  is  a 
curious  fact  that  about  fifty  years  ago  a  dis- 
tinguished Scottish  divine,  Dr.  Eobert  Service, 
published  an  essay  on  A  Spiritual  Theory  of 
Another  Life,1  in  which  on  purely  Biblical 
and  philosophical  grounds  he  defended  this 
selfsame  thesis.  Dr.  Service  would  have  re- 
jected with  scorn  any  testimony  from  the  Mrs. 
Pipers  of  his  day,  if  such  had  been  known  to 
him,  yet  his  contention  is  a  commonplace  of 
psychical  research.  Even  so,  we  must  ask: 
How  do  we  know  that  it  is  true?  In  asserting 
it  to  be  true,  we  are  really  begging  the  ques- 
tion, for  we  are  assuming  that  the  fact  of  sur- 
vival has  been  proved,  and  that  we  have  some 
test  by  which  we  can  verify  presumed  descrip- 
tions of  the  spiritual  activities  of  surviving 
personalities! 

When  we  seek  to  judge  the  value  of  the  evi- 
dence for  communication  with  the  dead,  we 
are  confronted  with  certain  drawbacks  under 

1  Contemporary  Review,  April,  1871. 


THE  ARGUMENT  FROM  RESEARCH    157 

which  it  labours.  For  one  thing,  it  is  generally 
agreed  that  the  most  convincing  items  are  too 
intimate  to  print.  To  quote  a  remark  of  Mr. 
Henry  Holt,  the  well-known  New  York  pub- 
lisher, in  a  private  letter  to  the  writer,  * '  Nature 
seems  to  have  strengthened  the  partition  be- 
tween this  plane  and  the  next  by  making  the 
strongest  evidences  that  death  is  only  a  parti- 
tion, so  intimate  that  those  experiencing  them 
cannot  tell  of  them."  Again  the  material  that 
is  published  loses  much  of  its  conviction- 
creating  power  from  the  fact  that  the  reader 
has  it  at  second-hand.  There  is  an  elusive 
quality  about  first-hand,  direct  experiment 
which  cannot  be  communicated  by  any  amount 
of  reading  and  reflection.  Says  Dr.  Hodgson 
in  reference  to  his  experience  with  George  Pel- 
ham,  "the  continual  manifestation  of  this  per- 
sonality, with  its  own  reservoir  of  memories, 
with  its  swift  appreciation  of  any  reference  to 
friends  of  G.  P.,  wTith  its  'give  and  take'  in  lit- 
tle incidental  conversations  with  myself,  has 
helped  largely  in  producing  a  conviction  of  the 
actual  presence  of  the  G.  P.  personality  which 
it  would  be  quite  impossible  to  impart  by  any 
mere  enumeration  of  verifiable  statements.  It 
will  hardly,  however,  be  regarded  as  surprising 
that  the  most  impressive  manifestations  are  at 


158  THE  FUTURE  LIFE 

the  same  time  the  most  subtle  and  the  least 
communicable."  x 

Still  further,  not  all  that  claims  to  be  super- 
normal is  supernormal,  nor  is  all  the  genuinely 
supernormal  to  be  regarded  as  evidence  for  the 
existence  of  discarnate  intelligences.  Shrewd 
guessing,  hints  unconsciously  supplied  by  the 
sitter,  fraud,  conscious  or  unconscious,  on  the 
part  of  the  psychic,  the  vagaries  of  secondary 
personality,  chance  coincidence, — these  and 
other  influences  must  be  set  aside  as  inadmis- 
sible before  we  can  be  sure  that  we  are  in  the 
presence  of  the  supernormal.  Then,  only  those 
incidents  or  facts  supernormally  communicated 
that  bear  upon  the  personal  identity  of  dead 
individuals  can  be  accepted  as  relevant  evi- 
dence. In  a  word,  whether  we  agree  or  not 
with  the  view  which  some  investigators  believe 
to  be  the  inevitable  result  of  their  inquiries, 
we  must  admit  that  psychical  research  is  a 
genuinely  scientific  movement.  It  makes  pains- 
taking efforts  to  get  at  the  facts,  and  as  a  rule, 
allows  theory  to  wait  on  experiment.  Indeed, 
the  critic  who  would  most  effectively  deal  a 
blow  at  the  " spiritistic"  hypothesis,  will  find 
the  best  wreapon  for  that  purpose  in  a  careful 
perusal  of  Psychical  Research  journals  and 

1  Proceedings,  Vol.  XIII. 


THE  ARGUMENT  FROM  RESEARCH    159 

proceedings.  For  masterpieces  of  dialectical 
skill  I  know  not  where  one  could  better  go  than 
to  these  volumes  which  for  the  most  part 
gather  dust  on  forgotten  shelves. 

In  the  next  chapter  will  be  given  some  speci- 
mens of  the  sort  of  evidence  which  the 
psychical  researcher  offers  in  support  of  his 
contention.  The  reader  must  have  in  mind 
that  to  do  justice  even  to  these  narratives,  it 
is  necessary  to  study  them  as  they  are  fully  set 
forth  in  the  original  sources  of  information,  and 
further,  that  the  evidence  now  accumulated  is 
so  bulky  that  few  men  can  afford  the  requisite 
time  to  study  it.  Various  books  giving  selec- 
tions from  this  literature  have  been  published, 
the  earliest  and  greatest  of  which  is  F.  W.  H. 
Myers's  Survival  of  Human  Personality  After. 
Bodily  Death.  The  evidence  is  not  all  in  by 
any  means,  but  enough  is  open  to  the  study  of 
those  who  are  interested  in  the  problems  in- 
volved to  force  the  issue  of  causation.  It 
would  appear  that  there  are  at  present  only 
two  possible  hypotheses :  either  we  must  accept 
a  far-reaching  doctrine  of  telepathy,  or,  we 
must  hold  that  under  certain  conditions,  an  oc- 
casional message,  at  least,  gets  through  to  our 
world  from  the  realms  beyond.  There  does  not 
appear  to  be  any  escape  from  the  choice  thus 


160  THE  FUTURE  LIFE 

thrust  upon  us,  yet,  whether  we  accept  one  or 
other,  doubts  and  difficulties  beset  us.  In  the 
view  of  the  present  writer  it  is  a  case  of  bal- 
ancing probabilities. 

1.    The  telepathic  hypothesis. 

By  "telepathy"  is  meant  the  transmission  of 
thought  or  feeling  from  mind  to  mind  independ- 
ently of  the  recognized  channels  of  sense.  It 
will  be  noted  that  there  is  nothing  explanatory 
in  this  definition  or  description.  The  word 
"telepathy"  is  a  convenient  symbol  to  cover 
coincidences  between  living  minds  not  due  to 
chance ;  but  we  have  not  even  an  inkling  of  the 
process  by  which  these  coincidences  come 
about.  In  calling  in  telepathy  as  an  explana- 
tion, we  appear  to  be  appealing  from  the 
obscure  to  the  still  more  obscure.  Speaking 
generally,  "official"  science  rejects  as  pure 
fancy  the  alleged  facts  connoted  by  the  term. 
For  example,  Professor  Armstrong,  who  writes 
a  postscript  to  Mr.  Clodd's  //  a  Man  Die 
Shall  He  Live  Again?,  brackets  together 
"telepathy"  and  "spiritualism"  and  de- 
nounces both  as  popular  superstitions.  There 
is  no  such  thing  (he  holds)  as  action  of  mind 
upon  mind  apart  from  the  recognized  chan- 
*/--  nels  of  sense,  except  such  as  are  explicable  by 
shrewd  guessing.  We  have,  as  a  result,  the 

TllA.*-*- 


THE  ARGUMENT  FROM  RESEARCH    161 

amusing  spectacle  of  distinguished  men  of 
science  appealing  to  telepathy  in  order  to 
render  the  spiritistic  theory  superfluous,  and  of 
equally  distinguished  men  of  science  rejecting 
telepathy  as  unproved  and  (as  some  think) 
unprovable.  To  make  confusion  worse  con- 
founded such  a  competent  investigator  as  Mrs. 
Henry  Sidgwick  believes  not  only  in  telepathy 
as  generally  understood  but  extends  the  process 
to  the  world  beyond  the  grave  and  maintains 
that  the  only  satisfactory  interpretation  of  the 
facts  implies  that  the  living  can  receive 
telepathic  impressions  from  the  dead.  In  other 
words,  telepathy  instead  of  being  a  rival  to 
spiritism  may  turn  out  to  be  its  ally  in  the 
sense  that  it  points  to  a  mental  phenomenon 
explicable  only  through  the  agency  of  discar- 
nate  intelligences.  Even  if  we  admit  with  such 
a  high  authority  as  Professor  W.  MacDougall 
that  the  * l  reality  of  telepathy  is  of  such  a 
nature  as  to  compel  the  assent  of  any  com- 
petent person  who  studies  it  impartially,"  *  we 
still  must  ask,  How  is  it  possible?  What  must 
we  assume  in  order  to  explain  it? 

The  present  situation  of  the  telepathic  hy- 
pothesis may  be  described  thus:  (1)  It  is 
accepted  by  the  great  majority  of  those  who 

1  Body  and  Mind,  p.  349. 


162  THE  FUTURE  LIFE 

have  made  prolonged  investigation,  as  a  con- 
venient way  of  stating  that  active  conditions  of 
two  living  minds  may  be  transmitted  from  one 
to  the  other  by  some  supernormal  path  as  yet 
unknown.  (2)  It  is  rejected  by  academic 
science  as  unnecessary,  since  the  alleged  facts 
are  illusory.  (3)  It  is  accepted  by  many  as  a 
rival  to  the  spiritistic  hypothesis,  as  competent 
to  explain  all  the  undoubted  facts  of  psychical 
research  so  far  as  these  seem  to  point  to  a 
transcendental  cause.  (4)  Finally,  it  is  ac- 
cepted by  some  experimenters  as  a  process  not 
only  of  incarnate  minds  but  of  minds  dis- 
carnate,  and  as  hinting  at  a  law  governing  all 
spiritual  intelligences  throughout  the  entire 
universe.  The  fatal  weakness  of  telepathy  as 
an  adequate  explanation  is  that  it  is  necessary 
to  ascribe  to  it  a  selective  power  which  no  ex- 
periments or  spontaneous  phenomena  reveal. 
So  far  as  experimentation  has  gone  there  is 
not  a  shred  of  evidence  to  lead  us  to  suppose 
that  one  mind  can  penetrate  the  subconscious 
depths  of  another  mind,  and  pick  out  of  a 
myriad  elements  those  that  are  relevant  to  the 
establishment  of  personal  identity. 

2.    The  spiritistic  hypothesis. 

This  view  has  the  advantages  of  simplicity, 
ability  to  explain,  and  agreement  with  what  we 


THE  ARGUMENT  FROM  RESEARCH    163 

know  of  the  powers  of  consciousness.  On  the 
other  hand,  there  are  obstacles  to  its  unre- 
served acceptance.  To  begin  with,  the  silence 
or  apparent  silence  of  all  the  ages  as  to  any 
authentic  message  from  the  world  beyond 
raises  a  powerful  presumption  that  the  spirit- 
messages  of  today  are  to  be  explained  by  some 
mysterious  forces  of  the  receiver's  psychic 
organism.  To  this  it  is  replied  that  such 
silence  is  a  mere  assumption,  that  on  the  con- 
trary the  experience  of  the  race  testifies  to  the 
reality  of  communication  with  the  other  world, 
but  that  prejudice,  preconceptions,  and  a  mate- 
rialistic bias  have  dulled  the  minds  of  the 
majority,  and  prevented  them  from  impartially 
weighing  the  facts. 

Then,  again,  in  many  of  the  phenomena  there 
is  a  curious  mixture  of  truth  and  error.  It 
was  this  perplexing  fact  that  led  William 
James  now  to  a  favourable  and  now  to  an  un- 
favourable judgment.  In  his  Report  on  Mrs. 
Piper's  Hodgson-control,  he  says:  "/  myself 
feel  as  if  an  external  will  to  communicate  were 
probably  there,  that  is,  I  find  myself  doubting, 
in  consequence  of  my  whole  acquaintance  with 
that  sphere  of  phenomena,  that  Mrs.  Piper's 
dream-life,  even  equipped  with  'telepathic' 
powers,  accounts  for  all  the  results  found.  But 


164  THE  FUTURE  LIFE 

if  asked,  whether  the  will  to  communicate  be 
Hodgson's,  or  be  some  mere  spirit-counterfeit 
of  Hodgson,  I  remain  uncertain  and  await  more 
facts. ' ' *  Just  at  the  point  when  the  correct 
answer  to  a  test-question  is  of  vital  impor- 
tance, the  supposed  communicator  is  silent  or 
finds  it  convenient  to  plead  an  engagement 
elsewhere,  or  in  some  instances  makes  a  reply 
which  turns  out  to  be  incorrect.  In  order  to 
blunt  the  force  of  this  objection,  our  attention 
is  called  to  the  fact  that  what  primarily  de- 
mands explanation  is  not  the  chaff  but  the 
precious  grain,  and  to  the  further  fact  that  in 
any  hypothesis,  any  message  from  the  tran- 
scendental realm  must  be  coloured  by  the  sub- 
conscious activities  of  the  psychic. 

Perhaps  the  objection  which  weighs  most 
heavily  with  the  average  man  is  the  assumed 
triviality  of  the  messages.  Even  admitting,  he 
says,  the  reality  of  the  communications,  of  what 
use  are  they?  What  do  they  tell  us  which  we 
do  not  know!  Is  it  not  passing  strange  that 
these  intelligences  have  nothing  to  tell  us  of 
the  conditions  of  the  sphere  which  they  in- 
habit? The  psychical  researcher  replies:  All 
the  messages  are  not  trivial,  and  even  the 
trivial  have  their  value  as  marks  of  identifica- 

1  Proceedings  of  American  8.P.R.,  Vol.  HI,  pp.  588,  589. 


THE  ARGUMENT  FROM  RESEARCH    165 

tion.  But  the  non-trivial  messages  such  as 
those  recorded,  for  example,  in  Miss  Cameron's 
Seven  Purposes,  are  not  open  to  verifica- 
tion, and  may  by  the  critic  be  explained  as  sub- 
conscious fabrications.  It  is  hard  to  see  how 
this  difficulty  can  be  overcome.  Finally,  the 
popular  mind  is  deeply  influenced  by  the 
failure  of  such  men  as  the  late  Dr.  Richard 
Hodgson  and  Mr.  F.  \V.  H.  Myers  to  fulfil 
their  promise  to  communicate  the  contents  of 
sealed  letters  which  they  left  under  stringent 
guardianship.  One  may  doubt,  however, 
whether  such  a  proceeding  constitutes  a  real 
test.  Suppose  Mr.  Myers  had  revealed  the 
contents  of  his  sealed  letter,  would  any  hard- 
ened sceptic  have  felt  shaken  in  his  unbelief! 
In  all  probability,  he  would  have  sought  help 
from  the  long  arm  of  coincidence  or  have  taken 
refuge  in  clairvoyance,  that  is,  the  transcen- 
dental perception  of  hidden  objects. 

On  the  whole,  the  layman  cannot  but  feel 
that  up  to  the  present  time  the  more  probable 
of  the  two  hypotheses  is  the  spiritistic.  The 
very  least  we  must  acknowledge  is  that  the 
psychical  researcher  has  made  out  a  good  case 
for  himself,  and  has  established  the  probability 
that  ultimately  his  thesis  will  be  proved  to  the 
satisfaction  of  all  competent  judges. 


CHAPTER  IX 

SPECIMENS  OP  THE  EVIDENCE  SUPPLIED  BY 
PSYCHICAL   RESEARCH 

IN  order  that  the  reader  may  be  enabled  to 
judge  for  himself  the  sort  of  evidence  which 
the  Psychical  Research  Society  is  slowly  ac- 
cumulating, a  few  typical  illustrations,  selected 
for  the  most  part  from  the  society's  literature, 
are  here  set  forth.  It  must  be  borne  in  mind 
that  a  great  many  more  incidents  and  cases  of 
equal  evidential  value  could  be  extracted  from 
the  voluminous  reports  of  the  society,  but  con- 
siderations of  space  forbid.  Perhaps  the  most 
convincing  book  in  the  entire  literature  of  the 
Movement  is  the  thirteenth  volume  of  the  Pro- 
ceedings, which  contains  the  famous  Hodgson 
Report  of  his  own  and  others'  sittings  with  Mrs. 
Piper.  The  study  of  this  volume  will  compel 
thoughtful  persons  to  admit  one  of  two  hy- 
potheses to  be  true :  either  this  New  England 
woman  of  average  education  develops  under 
certain  conditions  a  po\ver  of  dramatization 
comparable  with  that  of  Shakespeare  or  of 

166 


EVIDENCE  OP  RESEAECH         167 

Balzac,  or,  we  are  in  the  presence  of  phenom- 
ena that  point  to  some  such  doctrine  as  the 
spiritistic  theorists  contend  for.  But  Mrs. 
Piper  has  fellow-dramatists  of  equal  power — 
if  this  be  the  horn  of  the  dilemma  we  prefer 
—and  it  is  from  one  of  these  that  our  first 
testimony  shall  be  taken. 

THE   EAR   OF   DIONYSIUS 1 

This  piece  of  evidence,  reported  by  the  Eight 
Hon.  Gerald  W.  Balfour,  has  attracted  con- 
siderable attention,  particularly  among  persons 
of  literary  and  classical  education.  It  is  not 
weightier  than  many  others  of  more  direct  and 
simple  character,  but,  if  from  discarnate 
sources,  it  illustrates  the  variety  of  ways  by 
which  the  living  beyond  the  veil  are  endeavour- 
ing to  demonstrate  to  the  living  on  this  side. 
And  it  must  be  admitted  that  this  kind  of  proof 
attempted  is  of  the  precise  sort  which  would 
have  been  congenial  to  the  eminent  Greek 
scholar  of  the  University  of  Cambridge,  Pro- 
fessor A.  E.  Verrall,  and  his  friend  S.  H. 
Butcher,  professor  of  Greek  in  the  University 
of  Edinburgh,  who  are  the  purported  com- 
municators. 

1  Proceedings  of  the  English  Society  for  Psychical  Research, 
Vol.  XXIX,  pp.  197-243,  260-286. 


168  THE  FUTURE  LIFE 

Mrs.  Willett,  with  whom  the  English  Society 
has  had  many  experiments,  was  the  automatist, 
the  messages  coming  mainly  in  writing,  partly 
by  voice,  and  mostly  while  in  a  state  of  trance. 
One  mysterious  phrase,  "Dionysius  Ear  the 
lobe,"  came  in  1910,  and  nothing  more  which 
seemed  related  until  January  10,  1914,  when  a 
number  of  fragmentary  quotations  and  scat- 
tered classical  allusions,  seemingly  having  little 
relation  to  each  other,  were  written.  All  the 
after  members  of  the  series  were  written  when 
Mrs.  Willett  was  in  trance  and  were  not  shown 
to  her  until  the  series,  comprising  three  long 
groups  of  sentences,  separated  by  considerable 
intervals,  and  one  brief  congratulatory  finale, 
was  completed. 

Prominent  among  the  topics  to  which  various 
allusions  were  made  was  the  "Ear  of  Diony- 
sius,"  the  designation  for  a  certain  grotto  at 
Syracuse,  opening  on  a  stone  quarry,  where 
Athenian  prisoners  were  kept,  and  where  after- 
wards Dionysius,  Tyrant  of  Syracuse,  was  said 
to  have  been  able,  on  account  of  the  peculiar 
acoustic  qualities  of  the  place,  to  listen  to  what 
his  captives  said.  But  there  were  also  multi- 
form references  to  the  story  of  Polyphemus  and 
Ulysses,  and  the  story  of  Acis  and  Galatea,  to 
Jealousy,  to  something  to  be  found  in  Aris- 


EVIDENCE  OF  RESEARCH        169 

totle's  Poetics,  etc.,  etc.,  the  allusions  pursuing 
the  several  topics  through  classical  authors 
especially  and  also  to  an  extent  through  modern 
poets.  But  almost  to  the  end  there  appeared 
to  be  little  connection  between  these  various 
themes,  or  reason  why  they  should  reiteratedly 
te  grouped  together.  Yet  it  was  early  intimated 
that  there  was  unity  yet  to  appear,  and  it  was 
expressly  declared  that  a  deliberate  purpose 
was  back  of  the  scripts.  "  There  are  two  people 
in  that  literary  thing,  chiefly  concerned  in  it. 
They're  very  close  friends,  they've  thought  it 
out  together."  And  it  was  unmistakably  inti- 
mated that  the  two  were  the  Greek  scholars, 
Professors  Verrall  and  Butcher. 

Suddenly,  though  delayed  as  if  to  give  those 
in  whose  hands  the  script  was  a  chance  to  work 
out  the  problem  for  themselves,  and  with  an  air 
of  surprise  natural  to  the  specialist  who  dis- 
covers that  he  has  talked  "over  the  heads"  of 
his  auditors,  the  key  was  given  which  unlocked 
the  mystery,  and  unity  was  achieved.  The  key 
was  the  fragmentary  word  "Philox."  The 
classical  dictionaries  show  that  there  was  a 
Syracusan  poet  Philoxenus,  whose  name  very 
few  but  the  most  learned  pundits  of  Greek 
literature  would  recognize.  Even  Mrs.  Ver- 
rall, an  accomplished  classical  scholar,  did  not 


170  THE  FUTURE  LIFE 

remember  him.  Very  few  lines  of  his  sur- 
vive. 

But  the  classical  dictionaries,  as  a  rule,  do  not 
give  the  details  which  bind  together  the  most 
important  topics  and  allusions  of  the  script.  At 
last  a  share  of  them  were  found  in  Lempriere's 
Classical  Dictionary,  and  a  greater  number  in  a 
rare  and  recondite  book  by  Dr.  H.  "W.  Smith,  on 
the  Greek  Melic  Poets.  These  two  paragraphs 
found  respectively  in  the  named  books  suf- 
ficiently demonstrate  the  unity  as  found  in  the 
experiences  and  works  of  Philoxenus,  but  even 
here  not  all  the  pertinent  classical  allusions  of 
the  script  are  to  be  found.  So  that,  if  Mrs. 
Willett  had  consulted  either  or  both  of  these 
books  she  could  not  have  found  all  the  facts 
which  came  out. 

Mrs.  Willett  is  not  a  classical  scholar.  She 
is  very  well  known  to  the  investigators,  who 
are  satisfied  that  the  range  of  classical  knowl- 
edge displayed  in  the  script  is  enormously  be- 
yond what  she  is  capable  of  having  absorbed  in- 
cidentally to  general  reading  and  equally  well 
satisfied  that  she  never  consulted  the  authorities 
mentioned,  which  would  have  been  insufficient 
even  if  she  had. 

But  certain  allusions  in  the  script  were  such 
as  would  have  been  congenial  to  the  studies  of 


EVIDENCE  OF  RESEARCH         171 

Professor  Butcher,  others  to  Professor  Verrall. 
Besides,  and  it  seems  a  significant  coincidence, 
it  was  found  that  Smith's  Greek  Melic  Poets 
was  in  Professor  Verrall 's  library  and  was  used 
by  him  in  his  college  lectures. 

Professor  Verrall  was  interested  in  his  life- 
time in  the  experiments  for  cross-correspond- 
ence, which  dealt  largely  with  classical  ma- 
terials. It  seems  probable  that,  his  interest 
continuing  after  his  death,  his  own  communi- 
cations would  take  some  such  form  as  we 
actually  find.  But  to  learn  the  real  strength 
of  the  argument  that  back  of  these  scripts  lay 
a  "will  to  communicate ' '  on  the  part  of  classi- 
cal scholars  who  have  passed  beyond,  the  reader 
must  go  to  the  full  report.  One  feature  of  this 
is  what  looks  like  cross-correspondences  be- 
tween the  Willett  script  and  that  of  another 
automatist,  dealing  with  the  same  group  of 
references. 

TWO  SAMPLE  " CROSS-CORRESPONDENCES" 

The  English  Society  of  late  years  has  con- 
ducted many  experiments  in  "cross-correspond- 
ences" in  which  the  communicating  spirits  are 
supposed  to  get  the  same  test  word,  phrase,  or 
thought  into  the  script  of  different  automatists 


172  THE  FUTURE  LIFE 

at  a  distance  from  each  other,  none  of  them 
allowed  to  see  the  script  of  the  others,  all  of  it 
being  sent  to  the  headquarters  of  the  society  as 
received.  Mrs.  Piper  in  Edgbaston,  England; 
Mrs.  Verrall,  widow  of  Professor  A.  E.  Verrall 
of  Cambridge  University,  and  herself  a  scholar 
of  distinction,  in  Cambridge,  England;  Miss 
Verrall  alone  in  Cambridge ;  and  Mrs.  Holland 
in  India ;  these  were  the  chief  psychics  involved. 
Mrs.  Holland  did  not  know  even  that  any  such 
experiments  were  being  conducted. 

It  is  almost  impossible  to  cite  any  of  the 
results  in  brief  space,  in  a  way  that  will  be 
intelligible,  and  quite  hopeless  to  do  so  with- 
out diminishing  the  evidential  force. 

The  St.  Paul  Cross-Correspondence.1  On 
November  15,  1906,  Sir  Oliver  Lodge  proposed 
to  the  purported  Dr.  Hodgson,  who  was  com- 
municating through  the  hand  of  the  entranced 
Mrs.  Piper  in  Edgbaston,  that  a  test  of  the  kind 
should  be  made,  and  Hodgson,  assenting,  said 
that  he  would  go  to  Mrs.  Holland  and  try  to 
make  ' '  St.  Paul ' '  come  out  in  her  writing. 

On  December  31st,  Mrs.  Holland's  hand 
wrote  in  India  without  break  the  following,  ex- 

1  See  Journal  of  British  Society  for  Psychical  Research,  July, 
1917-January,  1918,  or  Journal  of  American  Society,  Septem- 
ber, 1917. 


EVIDENCE  OF  RESEARCH        173 

cept  the  parenthetic  figures,  which  we  prefix 
for  ease  of  reference. 


(1)  II  Peter  1,15. 

(2)  This  witness  is  true. 

(3)  It  is  time  that  the  shadow  should  be  lifted 
from  your  spirit. 

(4)  Let  patience  have  her  perfect  work. 

(5)  This  is  a  faithful  saying. 

These  sentences,  with  their  references  to 
"this  witness,"  "time  that  the  shadow  should 
be  lifted,"  "patience,"  and  "faithful  saying," 
have  a  significant  sound,  as  though  attention 
were  being  called  to  something.  But  to  what, 
Mrs.  Holland  did  not  know. 

Paragraph  2  was  written  by  St.  Paul  (Titus 
1,  13),  paragraph  3  is  reminiscent  of  a  passage 
by  St.  Paul  and  of  none  other  in  the  Bible 
(Romans  13,  11),  and  paragraph  4  is  a  sen- 
tence which  St.  Paul  was  fond  of  using  (I 
Timothy  1,  15;  I  Timothy  4,  9;  II  Timothy  2, 
11;  Titus  3,  8);  paragraph  4  (James  1,  4) 
would  have  pertinence  as  a  hint.  Paragraph  1 
seems  to  be  irrelevant.  The  name  of  St.  Paul 
appears  to  be  lacking. 

But  later,  January  12,  1907,  in  Cambridge, 
Miss  Verrall  's  hand  wrote : 


174  THE  FUTURE  LIFE 

"The  name  is  not  right  robbing  Peter  to  pay — 
Paul?  Sanctus  nomine  quod  effieit  nil  continens 
petatur  surveniet."  [Let  a  saint  be  sought  contain- 
ing in  his  name  that  which  effects  nothing,  he  will 
come  to  aid.] 

And  on  February  26th  Miss  Verrall  got: 

' '  You  have  not  understood  about  Paul,  ask  Lodge. 
Quibus  eruditis  advocatis  rem  explicabis  non  nisi 
ad  unam  normam  refers  hoc  satis  alia  vana."  [By 
calling  to  your  aid  what  learned  men  will  you  explain 
the  matter  unless  you  carry  it  to  one  norm?  This 
is  sufficient,  all  else  is  useless.] 

Here  are  two  references  to  St.  Paul  by  name, 
and  the  suggestion  "ask  Lodge."  Does  it  not 
look  as  though  failing  to  get  the  name  agreed 
on  with  Lodge,  the  communicator  had  turned  to 
another  automatist?  "Let  a  saint  be  sought 
containing  in  his  name  that  which  effects  noth- 
ing." Can  we  refuse  on  such  hints  to  examine 
the  name  "Paul"  and  find  in  it  the  root  PAUO 
meaning  to  cease,  come  to  an  end — a  procedure 
the  opposite  of  "patience"  and  which  is  pretty 
sure  to  effect  nothing?  "The  name  is  not 
right,"  "let  a  saint  be  sought" — where?  Does 
not  "robbing  Peter  to  pay — Paul"  furnish  a 
hint  that  the  passage  from  Peter  in  Mrs. 


EVIDENCE  OP  RESEARCH         175 

Holland's   script,   otherwise   full   of   Paul,   is 
meant? 

Turning  in  that  direction  we  find  that  there  is 
one  passage  in  the  Epistles  of  Peter  which 
names  Paul,  which  is  likewise  the  one  passage 
in  all  the  New  Testament  Epistles  which  names 
him,  which  is  likewise  the  one  passage  in  the 
entire  New  Testament  which  best  describes 
him,  and  that  is  II  Peter  3,  15,  "And  account 
that  the  long-suffering  of  the  Lord  is  salvation ; 
even  as  our  beloved  brother  Paul  according  to 
the  wisdom  given  unto  him  hath  written  unto 
you."  And  we  discover  that  II  Peter  3,  15 
differs  from  the  citation  as  written  II  Peter 
1,  15  by  but  one  figure.  Considering  the  many 
indications  that  an  auditory  process  is  often 
involved  in  the  transmission  of  words  through 
a  psychic,  it  is  important  to  note  that  of  all  the 
other  ordinals  ''third"  is  most  likely  to  be  mis- 
taken for  "first"  in  speech.  Can  all  this  be  the 
result  of  accident?  Many  will  conclude,  after 
they  consider  all  the  interlacing  hints  in  the 
Vcrrall  script — more  than  we  have  mentioned 

—that  II  Peter  3, 15  was  meant  to  be  given  Mrs. 
Holland,  and  that  this  is  the  "norm"  which, 
once  discovered,  would  "explain  the  matter" 
which  concerned  Lodge. 

7TBut  if  that  conclusion  is  correct,  it  completely 


, 

176  THE  FUTURE  LIFE 

excludes  the  telepathic  theory,  since  not  a  per- 
son concerned  in  the  tests  ever  suspected  where 
the  implied  error  lay,  or  that  there  was  an  error. 
Not  a  living  person  knew  it,  and  the  "norm" 
was  not  observed  and  brought  into  place  for 
years  after  the  incident  was  first  reported.  But 
some  one  knew  what  the  ''norm"  was,  and  that 
it  had  not  been  traced,  and  the  some  one  who 
dictated  Miss  Verrall's  script  gave  clue  upon 
clue  which,  had  "patience  had  its  perfect 
work,"  would  have  earlier  linked  together  the 
passages. 

The  Hope,  Star,  and  Browning  Cross-Corre- 
spondence.1 Mrs.  Verrall,  automatically  writ- 
ing when  alone,  wrote,  on  January  23rd,  1907 : 

Justice  holds  the  scales 

That  gives  the  words  but  an  anagram  would  be 
better. 

Tell  him  that — rats  star  tars  and  so  on.    Try  this 

It  has  been  tried  before  RTATS  rearrange  these 
[evidently  an  error]  five  letters  or  again  tears 
stare  .  .  . 

And  on  January  28th  her  script  began: 

ASTER  [Greek  for  star] 

TERAS  [anagram  on  aster;  meaning  wonder  or  a 
sign], 

1  Proceedings  of  British  Society  for  Psychical  Research, 
Vol.  XXII,  59-77. 


EVIDENCE  OF  RESEARCH        177 

And  in  the  short  passage  which  followed  were 
several  broken  extracts  from  Browning's 
poetry,  the  word  "hope"  being  emphasized  by 
being  substituted  for  the  original  word  "  pas- 
sion" in  the  poem. 

On  February  llth  Mr.  Piddington  sitting 
with  Mrs.  Piper  was  pointedly  informed  by 
"Myers"  that  a  cross-correspondence  had 
been  attempted  through  Mrs.  Verrall  and,  asked 
what  it  was,  after  a  little  confusion  answered, 

I  referred  to  Hope  and  Browning. 

(Yes.) 

I  also  said  Star. 

Look  out  for  Hope  Star  and  Browning. 

Not  until  after  this  was  search  made  in  Mrs. 
Verrall 's  script  received  by  the  Society,  with 
the  result  already  given. 

But  again  a  third  automatist,  who  had  been 
told  nothing,  had  a  part.  Miss  Verrall  on  Feb- 
ruary 3rd  was  impelled  to  draw  automatically  a 
crescent  and  a  star  and  to  write  with  no  in- 
telligible context  "the  crescent  moon  and  the 
star."  Later  too  she  was  told  that  a  five  letter 
anagram  had  been  part  of  a  success  on  January 
28, — nothing  more.  On  February  17th  she  got 
a  drawing  of  a  star  (without  the  crescent)  and 


178  THE  FUTURE  LIFE 

the  appended  sentence,  "that  was  the  sign  she 
will  understand  when  she  sees  it."  Of  several 
following  brief  phrases  these  were  three : 

"No  arts  prevail 

•  ••••••' 

and  a  star  above  it  all 

rats  every  where  in  Hamelin  town 

Now  do  you  understand" 

Miss  Verrall's  script  did  not,  then,  take  the 
hint  of  "five  letters"  (aster),  but  gave  the  four 
letter  English  version  of  the  same  word.  Be- 
sides she  wrote  anagrams  on  star,  namely, 
"arts"  and  "rats,"  as  Mrs.  Verrall's  script  had 
done  on  January  28th  in  her  "rats,  star,  tars 
and  so  on."  And  be  it  remembered  that  the 
"rats  everywhere  in  Hamelin  town"  is  a  refer- 
ence to  a  Browning  poem,  this  time  by  Miss 
Verrall. 

It  would  seem  as  though  we  had  a  good  triple 
cross-correspondence.  But  it  was  really  a  quad- 
ruple one.  Hodgson  was  supposed  to  be  helping 
in  the  communications.  It  was  actually  dis- 
covered that  among  the  papers  left  by  Dr. 
Hodgson  in  his  desk  at  the  time  of  his  death 
were  scraps  of  paper  whereon  he  had  jotted 
down  the  series  "STAR,  TARS,  RATS,  ARTS, 
TRAS,"  of  which  portions  had  come  out  in  the 


EVIDENCE  OF  RESEARCH         179 

script  of  both  Mrs.  Verrall  and  Miss  Verrall, 
also  the  series,  "RATES,  STARE,  TEARS, 
TARES,"  partly  given  in  the  script  of  Mrs. 
Verrall. 

The  full  text  of  this  cross-correspondence  is 
richer  in  suggestiveness  than  the  condensation 
indicates.  But  even  here,  does  it  not  look  as 
though  a  mind  or  minds  conceived  and  presided 
over  the  concurrent  phenomenal 

THE   AMAZING   STORY    OF    DORIS   FISHER 

What  is  now  known  as  the  "Doris  Case"  has 
two  parts.  The  first  part  is  the  history  of  the 
young  woman  as  perhaps  the  most  remarkable 
of  the  yet  observed  cases  of  "multiple  per- 
sonality," and  the  record  of  her  cure^1)  *  the 
second  part  is  the  record  of  a  series  of  experi- 
ments begun  after  her  cure  was  accomplished, 
with  Doris  as  the  sitter  and  Mrs.  Chenoweth, 
who  may  perhaps  be  called  the  successor  of  Mrs. 
Piper,  as  the  writing  psychic. (%2>  In  order  to 
appreciate  in  some  degree  the  evidential  value 
of  the  excerpts  which  we  are  to  make  from  the 
latter  record,  it  will  be  necessary  to  glance  at 
the  earlier  phase  of  the  case. 

"Dissociation,"  which  is  a  phenomenon  of 

*  Numbers  like  this  refer  to  notes  on  pp.  208-10. 


180  THE  FUTURE  LIFE 

very  rare  occurrence,  but  recognized  by  all 
modern  psychologists,  consists  (employing  the 
psychologically  orthodox  explanation)  in  a  fis- 
suring  of  the  mind,  much  as  the  main  branches 
of  a  tree  part  from  the  trunk,  into  two  sub- 
sistences, in  which  case  they  are  called  "dual 
personalities,"  or  into  more  than  two,  which  are 
accordingly  known  as  "multiple  personalities." 
The  latter  phenomenon  is  the  rarer,  and  pre- 
sents the  appearance  of  the  person  changing, 
mentally  and  in  some  respects  physically,  into 
now  one  and  now  another  of  several  other  per- 
sons. The  simile  of  the  branches  of  a  tree  fails 
in  that  these  "persons"  are  not  on  a  par,  for 
one,  known  as  the  primary  personality,  is 
what  is  left  of  the  original  total  mentality,  with 
what  might  be  called  rights  of  restoration; 
while  the  others,  denominated  secondary  per- 
sonalities, are  in  a  sense  parasitical  interlopers, 
brought  by  some  shock  or  strain  to  a  predis- 
posed individual.  Let  it  be  distinctly  under- 
stood that  these  are  not  moods,  or  fancies,  but 
real  mental  entities,  which  science  no  longer 
questions.  Nor  is  the  meaning  that  the  afflicted 
party  at  one  time  feels  like  one  person,  and  at 
another  time  feels  like  another  person.  There 
are  really  several  distinct  consciousnesses  which 
irregularly  take  turns  in  being  in  evidence.  To 


EVIDENCE  OF  RESEARCH        181 

the  uninitiated  spectator  there  indeed  appear 
to  be  strange  and  extreme  changes  of  mood  and 
behaviour,  accompanied  by  a  "play-acting" 
ability  to  alter  the  voice,  facial  expression,  etc., 
to  suit,  and  a  disregard  for  truth  evidenced  by 
contradicting  stories  and  claims.  But  it  is  a 
fact  that  each  personality  has  a  different  con- 
sciousness, will,  memory,  range  of  ideas  and 
tastes,  and  a  different  set  of  bodily  reactions  in 
the  form  of  individual  facial  and  vocal  expres- 
sion and  individual  peculiarities  of  sensation, 
hearing,  vision,  etc. 

At  the  time  that  Doris  was  discovered  by 
Mrs.  Prince  and  taken  in  hand  by  Dr.  Walter  F. 
Prince,  she  had  five  personalities  including  the 
primary  one.  But  previous  to  the  death  of  her 
mother  in  1906,  there  were  three  (if  "Sleeping 
Margaret"  was  a  personality  and  not,  as  she 
has  since  claimed,  a  spirit),  of  which  two  were 
of  such  nature  as  to  then  manifest  themselves  to 
beholders.  These  were  the  primary  personality 
afterwards  known  as  the  Real  Doris,  and  the 
secondary  personality,  who  came  to  be  called 
"Margaret."  By  turns  during  the  day  these 
came  "out"  and  conducted  affairs.  But  "Mar- 
garet" had  the  advantage  that  when  she  was 
subliminal  or  "in"  she  was  co-conscious,  so  that 
when  she  came  "out"  with  a  snap  of  the  neck, 


182  THE  FUTURE  LIFE 

she  knew  just  what  to  do  or  say  in  order  to 
carry  things  along  smoothly,  while  poor  "Real 
Doris"  was  unconscious  when  "in"  and  if  sud- 
denly summoned  into  consciousness  by  the  dis- 
appearance of  "Margaret"  often  had  to  "fish," 
to  "mark  time,"  and  to  employ  devices  to  orient 
herself,  making  blunders  at  that  and  incurring 
blame  for  her  supposed  wilfulness  or  falsity. 
"Margaret"  never  developed  beyond  the  men- 
tality of  a  very  sagacious  child  of  ten.  So  that 
in  the  last  year  of  the  mother's  life,  she  was 
used  to  seeing  her  daughter  at  times  behaving 
after  the  fashion  of  a  young  lady  of  seventeen 
and  at  other  times  like  a  romping  child  given 
to  dolls  and  sports,  always  fond  yet  at  times 
obedient  and  at  other  times  roguishly  heedless, 
now  showing  a  comprehension  suitable  to  her 
age,  but  again  betraying  an  almost  infantile  be- 
lief in  fairies  and  in  the  advent  of  babies  in  a 
doctor's  satchel. 

The  case,  complicated  by  a  fourth  personal- 
ity at  the  shock  of  the  mother's  death,  and  by  a 
fifth  a  year  later,  was  taken  in  hand  in  1911  and 
by  stages  in  a  treatment  of  three  and  a  half 
years,  during  which  Dr.  W.  F.  Prince  never  was 
absent  twenty-four  consecutive  hours,  was  re- 
stored to  normality.  One  thing  more.  Not  only 
was  a  daily  diary  of  the  progress  of  the  case 


EVIDENCE  OF  KESEARCH        183 

kept  during  the  three  and  a  half  years,  but  a 
large  number  of  facts  and  incidents,  gathered 
from  the  conversations  of  the  several  person- 
alities, were  set  down.  So  that  there  was  a 
written  record  of  many  facts  utterly  unknown 
to  the  reconstructed  Doris,  since  none  of  the 
memories  of  "Margaret,"  who  consumed  what 
would  amount  to  several  years  of  her  life,  ever 
have  emerged  in  her  consciousness.  Doris  was 
adopted  by  Dr.  and  Mrs.  Prince  and  still  has 
her  home  with  them. 

Conditions  of  the  Experiments  ivith  Mrs. 
Chenoweth 

Five  months  after  her  cure,  in  October,  1914, 
Doris  crossed  the  continent  alone,  to  be  the 
sitter  in  a  series  of  experiments  with  Mrs. 
Chenoweth  of  Boston.  This  was  done  pursuant 
to  the  request  of  Dr.  Hyslop,  and  the  experi- 
ments were  conducted  under  his  management. 

There  were  some  peculiar  advantages  in 
selecting  her  as  a  subject,  and  also  absolute 
safeguards. 

1.  Doris  was  utterly  unknown  to  the  public. 
Not  a  line  had  then  been  printed  about  her. 

2.  She  was  born  and  had  spent  the  most  of 
her  life  in  Pittsburgh,  some  five  hundred  miles 


184  THE  FUTURE  LIFE 

from  Boston,  and  had  been  living  in  California, 
three  thousand  miles  away. 

3.  Of  course  Dr.  Hyslop  never  mentioned  the 
girl  to  Mrs.  Chenoweth,  who  had  never  heard 
of  her. 

4.  Dr.  Hyslop  had  never  seen  her  but  once, 
and  knew  almost  nothing  of  her  earlier  history. 
There  had  been  only  one  or  two  brief  meetings 
between  him  and  Dr.  Prince. 

5.  According  to  methods  regularly  employed, 
Doris  was  not  admitted  into  the  room  where 
Mrs.  Chenoweth  was  until  the  latter  was  in  a 
trance,  seated  with  an  arm  on  the  writing-board. 
Moreover  the  sitter  was  invariably  seated  be- 
hind the  psychic  and  not  allowed  to  utter  a 
word.    Later  she  did  once  forget  and  utter  a 
few  words,  which,  had  it  occurred  earlier,  would 
have  betrayed  her  sex,  but  she  had  already  been 
identified  as  the  daughter  of  a  purported  com- 
municator. 

6.  The  condition   out  of  which   Doris   had 
lately  emerged,  also,  marked  her  as  an  interest- 
ing subject  for  such  experiments.     Could  the 
communicators  or  any  of  them,  professing  to 
have  known  her,  correctly  describe  that  condi- 
tion, so  peculiar  and  rare  ? 

Certain  critics  have  drawn  upon  their  imag- 
ination so  far  as  to  suggest  that  during  sucH 


EVIDENCE  OF  RESEARCH        185 

experiments  Dr.  Hyslop  probably  gives  involun- 
tary hints  to  the  psychic  by  vocal  intonations, 
starts,  exclamations,  and  other  eloquent  mani- 
festations of  emotion.  This  is  laughable  to  one 
who  has  watched  his  demeanour  at  such  times, 
which  is  as  uniform  and  monotonous  as  the 
movements  of  a  machine,  as  devoid  of  indica- 
tions as  the  face  of  the  stone  Sphinx.  Every 
word  uttered  in  the  room  is  set  down  and  forms 
a  part  of  the  published  report,  except  the  exact 
repetition  aloud  by  Dr.  Hyslop  of  each  word  as 
it  is  written. 

Did  Doris's  Mother  Prove  Her  Identity? 

It  is  impossible  to  convey,  in  this  abridged 
account,  an  adequate  conception  of  the  richness 
of  the  matter  contained  in  the  purported  com- 
munications from  the  sitter's  mother.  The 
reader  must  go  to  the  full  report  for  that.  But 
at  least  the  excerpts  and  condensations  shall  be 
fair,  and  not  minimize  such  errors  and  inco- 
herences as  at  least  superficially  appear  to 
exist.  The  same  spirit  of  fairness,  however, 
compels  us  to  admit  that  in  estimating  seeming 
errors,  a  certain  though  small  allowance  should 
be  made  for  failure  of  memory  on  the  part  of 
the  living,  and  will  compel  us  to  acknowledge 


186  THE  FUTURE  LIFE 

that  certain  of  the  incoherences  and  confusions 
are  themselves  evidential. 

The  first  words  written  after  Doris  silently 
entered  (November  9)  and  seated  herself  in  the 
background  were  ' '  John  E. ' '  It  afterwards  ap- 
peared that  her  maternal  grandfather  was  the 
communicator,  (4>  but  the  name  set  down  was 
that  of  the  father  of  Doris.  In  an  instant,  how- 
ever, another  communicator  interposed  with 
"May  I  come?"  and  declaring  that  her  father 
was  present  (note  that  both  she  and  her  father 
were  in  fact  deceased,  though  the  youth  of  the 
sitter,  even  had  she  been  seen  by  the  psychic, 
would  have  made  both  facts  doubtful)  soon 
added,  "Mother  is  glad  to  come  here  to 
you. ' ' 

Then  appeared  the  claim  "I  have  been  at 
home  with  you  dear.  ...  I  mean  with  you 
personally  and  directly,  first-hand  I  mean. 
This  is  different  but  I  take  the  time  to  make 
some  clearer  statements  if  I  can  than  I  have 
made  before."  It  is  true  that  there  had  been 
superficial  evidence  of  the  presence  of  the 
mother  in  the  home  of  the  daughter  and  of 
direct  touch  with  her.  Doris  twice  saw  an 
apparition  of  her  mother, <5>  on  one  of  which 
occasions  she  was  caused  to  look  up  by  seeing 
the  shadow  before  she  perceived  the  figure  it- 


EVIDENCE  OF  RESEARCH         187 

self.  There  had  also  been  a  few  experiments 
with  the  planchette  in  which  writing  purporting 
to  be  from  the  mother  was  received.  Both  ap- 
paritions and  planchette  writing  are  different 
from  pencil  scrip  through  an  unconscious  psy- 
chic. Some  difficulty  now  ensued  in  the  Cheno- 
weth  script,  what  appeared  to  be  "h"  "W  W 
W"  and  "M"  being  written,  but  then  absolutely 
spontaneously  came  "She  is  my  child,"  thus 
correctly  indicating  the  sex  of  the  sitter.  It  was 
after  this,  when  the  words  "My  being  so  cold" 
were  read  aloud  by  Dr.  Hyslop,  that  Doris  for- 
got and  said  "She  died  of  pneumonia."  But 
the  exclamation  came  too  late  to  do  appreciable 
harm.  Presently  the  hand  wrote  "Violets  I 
still  love."  They  were  in  fact  Mrs.  Fisher's 
favourite  flower.  "I  remember  them  at  the 
funeral. ' '  Dr.  Hyslop  here  looked  at  Doris  and 
she  silently  nodded.  The  writing  went  on  with- 
out break  "with  the  white  roses."  Soon  after 
the  control  broke  down.  There  were  other 
partly-evidential  allusions  in  the  sitting  for 
which  we  have  no  space  here.  Nothing  profess- 
ing to  come  from  this  communicator  had  been 
irrelevant  and  nothing  intelligible  expressed 
had  been  provably  incorrect  or  unlikely.  But 
Doris  was  strongly  of  the  opinion  that  there 
were  no  white  roses  at  her  mother's  funeral, 


188  THE  FUTURE  LIFE 

and  so  stated  to  Dr.  Hyslop  after  the  sitting. 
Not  she,  but  the  "Margaret"  personality,  none 
of  whose  memories  survived  in  her,  had  been 
present  at  the  funeral,  but  she  thought  she 
remembered  hearing  of  white  lilies,  but  not  of 
roses.  It  was  afterwards  proved,  however,  that 
the  communicator  was  right  and  the  sitter 
wrong.  The  faded  remnant  of  the  very  roses, 
which  were  held  in  the  dead  hands,  have  been 
traced,  still  with  the  florist's  wire  about  the 
stems. 

The  second  and  short  communication  from 
Mrs.  Fisher  (November  10)  must  be  almost 
passed  over,  but  not  because  it  presents  diffi- 
culties. It  is  all  relevant  and  a  number  of 
small  evidential  details  appear.  Among  these 
are  the  statement,  "I  have  been  able  to  show 
myself  on  two  or  three  occasions,"  and  the 
expression,  "I  want  to  say  a  word  about  baby, 
my  baby."  We  have  already  remarked  that 
Doris  saw  an  apparition  of  her  mother  twice. 
And  "baby,"  a  curious  term  to  apply  to  a  young 
lady  of  22,  happens  to  be  what  Mrs.  Fisher  often 
called  this  her  youngest  child.  But  more  re- 
markable is  the  fact  that  the  communicator  used 
the  word  "guard"  to  designate  the  office  of 
certain  spirits  supposed  to  be  placed  for  the 
protection  and  aid  of  the  girl.  Now,  this  rather 


EVIDENCE  OF  RESEARCH        189 

than  the  more  familiar  term  "guide"  is  just 
the  word  which  had  invariably  appeared  in 
the  planchette  script  through  the  sitter  her- 
self in  California.  It  was  the  first  time  that 
Mrs.  Chenoweth's  hand  had  been  known  to 
write  the  word  "guard"  in  that  sense. 

In  the  first  two  sittings  the  communicator 
made  references  to  the  "nervous  make-up"  and 
sensitiveness  of  her  daughter,  and  to  her  need 
of  care  and  protection  at  the  time  of  her  own 
death.  Another  such  reference  in  the  third  sit- 
ting (November  11)  warranted  Dr.  Hyslop  in 
asking  what  was  the  matter  with  the  girl.  The 
reply  was  very  pertinent. 

"I  do  not  know  what  you  refer  to.  If  you  mean  the 
physical  condition,  I  should  say  not  that  so  much  as  a 
childlike  dependence  mentally  which  needed  all  my 
care  and  foresight  to  keep  her  as  she  ought  to  be  and 
there  was  no  one  else  who  understood  her." 

Any  one  who  reads  the  full  account  will  see 
how  strikingly  correct  this  is.  The  trouble  as  it 
had  been  known  to  the  mother  was  not  physical 
but  mental,  "the  childlike  dependence"  result- 
ing from  the  personality  "Margaret."  The 
mother  had  not  understood  the  case  technically, 
but  she  understood  how  to  deal  with  it  as  no 
one  else  had,  and  there  was  nothing  about  the 


190  THE  FUTURE  LIFE 

girl's  present  condition,  even  had  Mrs.  Cheno- 
weth  been  able  to  observe  it,  which  hinted  at 
the  past  state. 

"The  play  with  other  children  was  never  as  chil- 
dren usually  play,  but  was  left  as  a  part  of  my  care 
for  her.  We  were  companions,  my  little  one,  in  a 
strange  way  and  her  mind  was  always  so  quick  to 
see  my  meaning  when  to  others  she  could  not  or  would 
not  respond,  and  there  was  a  delicate  feebleness,  as 
some  might  call  it,  a  slow  development." 

This  is  an  extraordinary  passage  fitting  an 
extraordinary  case.  The  child  could  not  play 
with  other  children  unless  she  ("Margaret") 
was  allowed  to  be  autocrat.  Hence  she  usually 
played  alone  or  with  her  mother,  who  fully 
entered  into  the  spirit  of  the  peculiar  sport, 
and  thus  was  a  companion  "in  a  strange  way." 
By  endless  patience  and  forbearance  she  was 
able  to  get  along  with  both  manifestations, 
which  by  their  odd  alterations  and  blendings 
must  have  made  her  wonder  if  her  daughter 
would  ever  grow  up.  Even  "Real  Doris"  was 
shy  and  backward  with  strangers. 

Pressed  to  give  details,  the  communicator  not 
unnaturally  demurred,  saying  that  those  things 
should  remain  between  her  and  her  daughter, 
but  aptly  added,  "It  was  some  things  she  said 


EVIDENCE  OF  RESEARCH         191 

as  well  as  things  she  did."   But  she  yielded  and 
wrote : 

I  want  to  refer  to  the  running  away  to  other  places. 

(Yes,  tell  of  some  of  the  places.) 

It  was  a  matter  of  worry  to  have  her  do  that.  It 
was  not  only  that  she  went  but  she  would  not  come 
back,  and  there  were  things  said  at  the  time  to  try 
and  make  her  understand  it.  I  do  not  know  now  why. 

(Can  you  say  or  tell  some  particular  place  where 
she  would  go  and  worry  you?) 

Yes,  I  am  aware  of  the  things  that  happened  then 
and  of  my  fears  and  constant  watching  for  the  return 
and  of  the  real  danger  that  might  have  come  to  her  if 
she  had  got  into  the  place,  she  would  have  been 
drowned. 

All  this  is  peculiarly  true.  The  mother  must 
have  been  disturbed  by  " things  she  said,"  as 
when  the  personalities  contradicted  each  other. 
And  often  as  "Margaret"  she  would  go  on  some 
long  tramp,  perhaps  returning  late  at  night. 
Often  the  "Margaret"  personality  would  dash 
into  the  river,  clothes  and  all,  and  would  swim 
underneath  a  dry-dock,  etc.  This  last  was  a 
specially  dangerous  place.  Observe  that  the 
mother  does  "not  know  now  why"  she  could 
not  make  her  daughter  take  understanding  heed. 
Throughout,  this  communication  showed  knowl- 


192  THE  FUTURE  LIFE 

edge  of  the  past  behaviour  of  her  daughter  but 
not  of  the  nature  and  cause  of  it. 

"She  was  so  much  a  child  without  the  least  sense 
of  danger  and  I  thought  no  one  else  would  take  the 
care  of  her  that  I  did.  Why  I  used  to  play  with  her 
and  walk  about  doing  my  work  and  talking  with  her, 
and  she  would  answer  until  suddenly  I  would  get  no 
answer  and  she  was  out  of  sight  and  then  I  had  my 
worry." 

All  exactly  true  as  set  forth  with  many  illus- 
trations in  the  Report. 

A  passage  in  which  there  is  evident  confusion 
seems  to  say  that  the  girl's  father  was  dead, 
which  was  not  correct,  but  it  is  not  certain  what 
was  meant.  Then  a  reference  came  to  an ' '  Aunt 
J,"  said  to  have  felt  some  concern  about  Doris, 
which  was  true  of  her  Aunt  Jennie.  Immedi- 
ately followed  reference  to  "Charles"  and 
"Helen,"  the  latter  said  to  be  alive  and  to 
have  "had  some  association"  with  the  sitter. 
Charles  was  the  name  of  a  deceased  brother  and 
Helen  that  of  a  friend  who  was  not  living  but 
had  died  less  than  three  weeks  before.  Are  we 
bound  to  suppose  that  a  spirit,  every  time  an 
acquaintance  dies  anywhere,  knows  it  at  once? 

In  the  next  communication  (November  16) 
came  a  reference  to  "Mary,  Mamie."  Doris 


EVIDENCE  OF  RESEARCH         193 

has  a  sister  called  Mary  but  never  called  Mamie. 
And  then  a  reference  to  an  aunt,  later  stated  to 
be  the  communicator's  own  sister,  to  "our" 
mother  (meaning  the  mother  of  the  sisters)  on 
the  other  side  and  to  a  "J"  and  the  remark 
that  the  aunt  would  know  who  ' '  J  "  is.  The  fact 
is  that  the  aunt  referred  to  (Marie)  did  feel 
some  perplexity  about  the  adoption  of  Doris 
into  the  Prince  family,  suspecting  she  was  to 
be  made  a  drudge.  And  she  formerly  had  a 
little  nephew  James,  of  whom  she  had  been  very 
fond,  but  who  died.  The  grandmother  of  the 
sitter  was  also  in  fact  dead. 

After  the  mention  of  her  own  mother  the  com- 
municator proceeded : 

"I  have  something  to  say  also  about  some  things 
that  were  left  in  the  care  of  one  who  is  in  the  old 
home.  I  mean  the  home  where  I  used  to  live.  Some 
things  that  have  been  kept  for  her  and  are  still  kept. 
I  refer  to  a  trinket  that  was  not  of  such  value,  but 
was  mine  and  being  mine  was  kept.  There  are  two 
women  interested  in  what  I  shall  write  here,  and  I 
think  each  will  know  about  the  ring  of  which  I  write." 

The  fact  is  that  the  mother  of  Doris  made  a 
romantic,  runaway  marriage,  and  so  incurred 
the  lasting  ill-will  of  her  father,  which  accounts 


194  THE  FUTURE  LIFE 

for  the  fact  that  her  "trinkets"  were  not  sent 
to  her.  The  old  home  was  not  standing  at  the 
time  of  the  sitting.  Prior  to  its  being  torn 
down  an  uncle  was  living  in  it,  and  when  it  was 
demolished  the  Aunt  Marie  and  her  daughter 
found  a  ring  and  a  watch  which  had  belonged 
to  Mrs.  Fisher  and  restored  them.  She  gave  the 
ring  to  Doris  and  later  the  watch  also  came  to 
the  latter. 

Immediately  afterwards  was  written : 

"Lilies  were  there 

(Just  where?) 

At  the  old  home  where  grandmother  lives,  Auntie 
will  remember.  I  wish  I  could  write  about  a  little 
curl  that  was  cut  from  baby's  head  and  kept  by  me, 
not  yet  destroyed,  very  like  flax,  so  light,  and  do  you 
know  what  the  Methodists  are. 

(Yes) 

They  are  not  so  clear  about  the  life  here  as  they  will 
be  when  they  come  but  they  mean  all  right.  I  had 
faith  too,  but  the  knowledge  is  better.  I  had  in  mind 
a  prayer  that  I  used  to  want  her  to  say  long  ago,  for 
I  felt  it  important  to  pray  and  teach  her  to  say  the 
little  prayer.  (Can  you  give  that  prayer?)  Now? 
(Yes)  I  lay  me — prayer  that  most  children  say. 
(All  right)  And  at  the  end,  God  bless  papa,  God 
bless  mamma,  God  bless  Her  and  make  her  a  good 
girl." 


EVIDENCE  OF  RESEAKCH         195 

Doris  often  heard  her  mother  describe  the 
border  of  lilies-of -the- valley  around  her  child- 
hood home.  The  mother  did  cut  a  curl  (the  hair 
was  very  curly  and  soft  and  light  as  flax)  from 
the  brow  of  baby  Doris,  and  it  was  found  in  a 
drawer  after  she  died.  Her  family  were  all 
Methodists,  but  she  became  somewhat  alienated 
from  Methodism  because  of  the  unforgiving 
spirit  of  her  father. 

All  the  children  were  taught  to  say  "Now  I 
lay  me"  and  to  add  petitions  for  parents, 
brothers,  and  sisters  in  turn.  But  Doris  (as 
"Margaret")  was  too  impatient  to  go  through 
the  long  list,  and  finally  a  compromise  was 
struck  word  for  word  as  the  communicator  says, 
if  we  substituted  "me"  for  "her." 

The  communicator  said  that  she  had  seen 
Edith,  who  is  unrecognized.  Then  came 

"I  shall  give  my  little  girl's  name  before  I  leave 
here.  I  do  not  know  whether  today  or  tomorrow,  but 
I  think  I  ought  to  do  it,  so  you  may  know  I  remember, 
but  I  had  so  many  other  names  for  her  that  I  some- 
times called  her  one  and  sometimes  another.  Some- 
times my  little  Dolly,  sometimes  runaway,  little  run- 
away. You  know  what  that  means,  dear?  (Sitter 
nodded)  (Yes  she  does) 

For  those  little  feet  could  not  be  trusted  to  stay 
where  they  were  told  to  stay,  and  many  talkings  and 


196  THE  FUTUKE  LIFE 

some  punishments  had  to  be  invented  to  keep  my 
mind  at  rest  as  to  where  she  might  be,  but  that  was 
the  desire  to  get  a  larger  scope  I  suppose.  Do  you 
remember  the  hill,  down  the  hill  to  the  stream. 

(Give  the  name  of  the  stream) 

Yes  and  C.      A,  yes  A. 

Doris  says,  "Mother  used  to  call  me  all  sorts 
of  names,  Kunaway,  Sweetheart,  Curlyhead, 
Spitfire,  and  others  I  cannot  think  of  now,  be- 
sides Dolly,  because  my  hair  curled  close  to  my 
head  when  it  rained  or  was  hot  and  made  me 
look  like  a  doll  I  suppose." 

What  followed  is  also  emphatically  correct. 
Peculiar  punishments  had  to  be  invented  that 
would  work  with  the  " Margaret"  phase.  One 
was  purposely  to  look  grieved.  As  to  "talk- 
ings"  Doris  says,  "She  would  tell  me  that 
somebody  would  steal  me,  that  I  would  get  lost, 
that  I  would  go  too  far  and  couldn't  get  back 
and  would  die  on  the  road. ' ' 

The  family  lived  near  the  Allegheny  Eiver 
and  a  high  embankment  went  down  to  it.  The 
end  of  an  old  unused  canal  jutted  into  the  river. 
The  children  called  it  the  Canal  and  often 
went  there  to  swim  as  well  as  to  the  river,  so 
that  Canal  and  Allegheny  were  conjoined  terms 
to  the  anxious  mother.  The  initials  may  refer 
to  these. 


EVIDENCE  OF  RESEARCH         197 

November  17th  the  same  communicator, 
after  some  relevant  but  not  specially  evidential 
remarks,  delivered  an  amazing  series  of  inci- 
dents. 

"It  is  not  always  what  I  remember  that  I  wish  to 
write  but  also  to  have  something  which  my  little  girl 
may  remember  as  well  as  I. 

"I  have  been  thinking  about  a  swing  out  of  doors 
and  a  step  where  I  used  to  sit,  I  mean  a  doorstep 
where  I  sat  and  worked,  and  the  swing  was  in  sight 
of  that. 

(Yes,  that  is  recognized)     [Sitter  had  nodded] 
"And  in  the  swing  my  little  girl  played  and  had 
some  pleasure,  and  there  was  also  a  game  we  played 
together,  out  of  doors  I  mean  and  I  wonder  if  she 
recalls  a  game  with  balls  we  played  out  of  doors. 
(Yes,  what  was  it?)     [Sitter  had  nodded] 
"Croquet,  and  I  wonder  if  she  recalls  how  a  game 
won  by  her  always  meant  shouts  and  jumps  and  a 
great  crowing  on  her  part  regardless  of  how  mamma 
might  feel,  and  I  can  hear  that  laugh  and  would  give 
much  to  play  again  in  the  old  way." 

Note  the  announced  purpose  to  select  inci- 
dents which  her  daughter  would  remember. 
And  the  incidents  which  followed  were  such  as 
concerned  that  one  of  her  children  exclusively. 
The  swing  was  one  of  their  secrets  used  only 
when  they  were  alone  together,  put  up  before 


198  THE  FUTURE  LIFE 

every  performance  and  afterwards  taken  down 
and  hidden  away.  "Real  Doris"  and  "Mar- 
garet" only  used  the  swing  and  only  when  the 
mother  sat  on  the  back  steps  and  sewed  or  pre- 
pared vegetables  or  sometimes  talked  and  sang. 
Doris  played  croquet  only  with  her  mother  and 
the  mother  only  with  her. 

As  to  the  behaviour  after  a  game,  Dr.  Prince 
remarks :  "  A  most  realistic  and  lifelike  descrip- 
tion of  'Margaret's'  manner,  when  exultant,  as 
I  so  often  saw  her  in  later  days.  (It  should  be 
remembered  that  the  'Margaret'  personality 
after  developing  to  the  physical  age  of  about 
ten  years  never  advanced  farther.)  'Shouts,' 
'jumps,'  'a  great  crowing,'  'regardless  of  how 
mamma  might  feel,'  'I  can  hear  that  laugh,' 
these  graphic  bits  of  delineation  could  hardly 
be  improved  upon.  The  'regardless,  etc.,'  re- 
minds me  vividly  of  the  times  when  'Margaret' 
was  delighted  at  some  incident  regardless  of 
how  her  new  papa  might  feel." 

The  writing  went  on  without  a  break : 

"Then  I  want  to  recall  a  walk  we  sometimes  took 
down  the  road.  I  wonder  if  she  recalls  a  pink  bonnet, 
not  quite  a  bonnet,  but  a  little  sun  hat  which  was 
washable  and  which  she  often  wore  when  we  took  our 
walk  to  see  some  one  down  the  street. ' ' 


EVIDENCE  OF  EESEARCH         199 

True,  Doris  and  her  mother  would  "walk 
down  the  street"  to  call  on  an  old  lady,  the 
very  person  who  gave  her  the  pink  washable 
sun  hat  which  the  child  often  wore  on  these 
visits. 

Then  reference  was  made  to  an  uncle  who 
lived  near  the  Fishers,  was  "not  young"  and 
was  called  "uncle"  by  every  one.  These  par- 
ticulars exactly  fitted  an  uncle  of  Doris  when 
she  was  a  child.  A  toy  piano  was  mentioned 
which  the  sitter  did  not  recall.  <6) 

"I  will  not  speak  of  the  numerous  dolls.  They  were 
always  in  evidence  and  usually  one  in  the  window. 
That  was  a  little  manner  that  belonged  to  her 
peculiarly  to  have  a  doll  in  the  window  looking  out." 

A  little  later  the  communicator  said  that  these 
were  paper  dolls.  Then  the  sitter  who  had 
shaken  her  head  at  the  first  reference,  suppos- 
ing it  to  be  purchased  dolls,  which  she  had  never 
possessed,  understood.  The  child  and  her 
mother  had  cut  out  many  paper  dolls  and  "Mar- 
garet" nearly  always  had  one  in  the  window 
turned  towards  the  street  as  if  looking  out. 

"Daisy,  daisy  flowers.  You  know  what  I  refer  to. 
We  used  to  love  to  get  them,  and  do  you  remember 
a  pet  that  used  to  follow  us  and  we  were  afraid  it 
would  get  lost. " 


200  THE  FUTURE  LIFE 

(Yes,  tell  what  the  pet  was.)     [Sitter  had  nodded.] 
"Cat,  kitty,  always  following  everywhere." 


As  in  other  incidents  it  is  not  so  much  the 
truth  of  the  separate  statements  as  their  truth 
in  combination  that  is  striking. 

Doris  and  her  mother  used  to  go  to  some  old 
estates  about  five  squares  away  in  order  to  pick 
daisies,  and  on  these  very  expeditions  a  pet  cat 
would  follow  part  way  and  then  turn  back  and 
"Margaret"  would  worry  lest  it  would  get  lost 
and  threaten  in  that  case  to  beat  her  head 
against  a  post.  Its  name  was  "Kittybell,"  and 
perhaps  "Kitty"  following  cat  in  the  communi- 
cation was  an  abortive  attempt  to  give  the  name. 

Other  evidential  items  of  this  sitting,  with  one 
unremembered  name,  that  of  a  little  boy 
Eugene,  "not  a  relative  just  a  little  boy  we 
knew,  I  thought  she  would  remember  him,"  <7> 
must  be  omitted. 

The  next  communication  from  Mrs.  Fisher 
(December  1)  mostly  came  intermediately 
through  a  purported  Indian  child  calling  her- 
self "Laughing  Water."  Spontaneous  allu- 
sions having  been  made  to  some  trouble  from 
which  Doris  had  suffered,  Dr.  Hyslop  asked 
what  had  caused  it.  The  communicator  said  she 
would  ask  the  mother. 


EVIDENCE  OF  RESEARCH        201 

"Accident  is  what  she  says.  All  right  before  the 
accident,  all  wrong  after  it.  And  some  shock  which 
seemed  to  make  her  afraid  afterwards. 

(Yes  can  you  tell  exactly  what  the  accident  was?) 

"Fall  into  the  river  ['river'  spontaneously  erased 
as  soon  as  read].  Fall  is  right  and  concussion.  You 
know  the  rest. 

(Was  any  person  connected  with  or  responsible  for 
the  fall?) 

"Yes,  Mother  shakes  her  head  and  cries,  but  I  do 
not  know  whether  it  was  a  man  or  woman,  but  some 
one  was  to  blame.  Carrying  her  to  *d'  [distress  and 
groans  preceding  the  letter  *d'  which  was  possibly  the 
last  letter  of  the  word  'bed']  I  do  not  know  what 
she  is  trying  to  say  but  it  sounds  like  school. 

(Who  was  carrying  her?) 

"Man  near  her  in  relation. 

(How  near?) 

' '  As  near  as  father. ' ' 

(All  right.) 

"The  mother  squaw  is  excited  now  and  I  think  it 
is  a  shame  to  make  her  live  it  all  over." 

The  facts  were  unknown  even  to  Doris  until 
this  communication  but  were  already  on  record 
in  California,  having  been  related  to  Dr.  Prince 
by  the  personalities  "Sleeping  Margaret"  and 
"Margaret."  The  mother  was  carrying  the 
child,  then  three  years  old,  to  bed,  and  the 
father  in  a  drunken  frenzy  seized  and  dashed 


202  THE  FUTURE  LIFE 

it  violently  upon  the  floor.  From  that  time  she 
was  subject  to  changes  of  personalities  and  to 
deadly  fear  of  her  father.  Note  not  only  the 
truth  of  the  statements  but  their  psychological 
colouring,  how  they  were  extorted  by  "Laugh- 
ing Water ' '  piecemeal  from  the  mother  with  all 
appearances  of  reluctance  and  emotion  natural 
to  one  living  over  a  tragic  event  in  the  life  of 
her  child. 

Again  we  must  pass  over  much  that  is  evi- 
dential and  very  little  that  is  not  identifiable 
and  relevant.  Other  communicators  now  took 
most  of  the  time.  But  on  December  21st  the 
mother  gave  a  number  of  details  which  cannot 
be  omitted. 

"I  am  some  nervous  as  I  recite  some  scenes,  but  I 
try  to  keep  calm.  I  want  to  say  something  about 
Skippy,  Skippy,  a  name  of  a,  pet  name.  [Struggle] 

(Stick  to  it.) 

"Little  pet  of  long  ago.  Skippy  dog,  and  a  kind  of 
candy  I  want  to  speak  of  which  we  used  to  get  at  a 
store  not  very  far  off. 

(Yes  what  kind  of  candy?) 

"Long  sticks  that  were  broken  in  pieces,  like  brittle 
is  sometimes.  I  do  not  mean  the  chocolates.  They 
were  rarer,  but  the  kind  that  lasted  so  long  in  the 
mouth.  She  knows. 

(Yes  she  does)     [Sitter  had  nodded] 


EVIDENCE  OF  RESEARCH        203 

"And  there  were  other  things  we  bought  there 
sometimes,  papers  and  pen  for  things  we  did  at  home. 
I  also  want  to  speak  of  a  little  cup  that  we  kept 
something  in  metal  cup,  tin,  small  tin,  that  we  kept 
pennies  in,  and  we  used  to  turn  them  out  after  we 
saved  them  and  count  them  to  see  if  we  had  enough 
for  something  which  we  wanted.  We  were  great 
planners  my  little  girl  and  I.  And  we  had  to  save 
some  for  Sunday.  She  knows  what  for. 

(Can  you  tell) 

"Contribution,  collection.  Part  of  it  for  that  not 
all." 

Every  sentence  is  correct,  every  word,  except 
that  Skippy  was  a  cat.  It  was  lame  and  hence 
was  given  this  name.  The  mother  and  child 
were  accustomed  to  buy  candy,  the  store  was 
near  the  home,  the  candy  was  usually  what  had 
been  peppermint  sticks,  but  could  be  obtained 
cheaper  because  they  had  been  broken. 

They  bought  chocolates  also,  but  more  rarely, 
because  of  the  higher  cost.  These  were  the  only 
kinds  purchased.  They  did  buy  papers  and 
pencils,  and  at  the  same  store.  The  paper  was 
to  make  the  dolls  with,  and  the  pencils  were  in 
order  to  write  little  stories  and  tack  them  up 
for  each  other  to  find,  an  instance  of  the  com- 
radeship of  this  mother  and  her  unusual  child. 

Note  the  instance  of  the  gradual  building  up 
of  the  right  conception  in  its  passage  through 


204  THE  FUTURE  LIFE 

the  sleeping  consciousness  of  the  psychic.  The 
vessel  used  to  keep  "something"  in,  "pennies" 
(now  we  have  it),  was  a  "little  cup,"  a  metal 
"cup,"  a  "tin,  small  tin,"  and  the  communi- 
cator goes  on  as  though  satisfied.  As  a  matter 
of  fact  it  was  a  small  tin  can.  The  "some- 
thing" kept  in  the  can  was,  in  fact,  pennies. 
Saving  was  a  slow  process  because  of  poverty, 
and  the  pair  would  turn  the  pennies  out  to  see 
if  they  had  enough  for  small  presents.  And 
Doris  constantly  attended  Sunday  School  and 
always  took  a  penny  out  for  the  "collection." 
The  mother  and  child  were  certainly  great 
"planners,"  holding  frequent  consultation  with 
great  gravity  and  circumstance. 

On  two  occasions  the  name  of  the  communi- 
cator was  given  by  her,  Emma.  Though  there 
was  confusion  of  a  sort  which  would  hardly 
consist  with  the  telepathic  theory,  her  fixed  pur- 
pose to  give  that  name  as  her  own  is  evident. 

Such,  cut  and  injured,  were  the  messages  pur- 
porting to  come  from  the  spirit  of  Doris's 
mother.  In  full  it  is  the  most  evidential  group 
ever  published.  Some  one  remarked  that  the 
facts  were  mostly  ordinary  and  common,  and 
might  happen  to  any  girl  and  her  mother.  True, 
individually  they  might,  but  not  in  combination. 
Even  naming  the  girl's  mother,  Emma,  cor- 


EVIDENCE  OF  RESEARCH        205 

rectly  had  about  twenty-seven  chances  to  one 
of  being  incorrect  if  it  were  a  guess.  It  is  con- 
servative to  say  that  not  one  family  in  twenty 
ever  possessed  a  cat  or  dog  named  "Skippy." 
One  chance  in  660!  Never  having  observed  a 
paper  doll  put  in  a  window  looking  out,  I  do 
not  believe  one  girl  in  thirty  has  the  habit  of 
making  and  so  placing  them.  Now  we  have 
one  chance  out  of  16,800  of  just  these  three  par- 
ticulars combined  being  right. 

All  the  particulars  stated  about  the  girl  in 
the  communications  claiming  to  be  from  her 
mother  with  liberal  allowances  for  errors  or 
unprovable  statements  would  not  be  likely  of 
duplication  on  this  planet  were  its  population 
a  hundred  fold  what  it  is. 

Throughout  the  series  of  messages  from  the 
mother,  no  knowledge  of  the  underlying  causes 
of  her  daughter 's  former  strange  condition  was 
manifested  but  only  that  which  would  be  ger- 
mane to  a  domestic  observer  who  was  intelligent 
but  unread  in  abnormal  psychology.  That  is, 
they  deal  with  puzzling  conduct  and  the 
anxieties  consequent  thereto.  On  the  theory  of 
telepathic  extraction  from  the  minds  of  the  per- 
sons present  some  inkling  of  what  caused  the 
conduct  should  have  come  through,  since  Dr. 
Hyslop  of  course  knew  perfectly  the  technical 


206 

definitions  assigned  to  the  phenomena  of  "dis- 
sociation," and  even  Doris  at  this  time  was 
fully  informed  about  herself. 

ADDENDA 

But  one  communicator  showed  recognition  of 
the  technical  nature  of  Doris's  case,  and  he  was 
the  one  known  in  lifetime  to  have  had  knowl- 
edge of  this  sort  and  dealings  with  a  similar 
one. 

This  was  Dr.  Eichard  Hodgson,  who  had 
experimented  with  the  well-known  ''Beau- 
champ"  instance  of  dissociation  and  had  often 
conversed  about  it  with  Dr.  Morton  Prince,  in 
whose  charge  it  was.  Early  in  the  sitting  of 
November  19th  a  communication  from  Dr. 
Hodgson  was  written,  from  which  only  the  most 
significant  scraps  can  be  taken. 

"I  am  much  interested  in  the  way  this  case  is  going 
on  and  do  not  think  I  can  add  much  to  the  work. 
(Can  you  compare  it  with  any  you  knew?) 
"Yes,  and  have  several  times  thought  that  I  would 
interpolate  a  message  that  you  might  see  that  I  recog- 
nized the  similarity  of  the  case  with  one  in  particular 
that  caused  me  some  concern  at  times  and  some 
hopes  in  others,  but  this  is  better  organized  than  that 
was  (8>.     I  mean  that  there  seems  to  be  a  definite 


EVIDENCE  OF  RESEARCH        207 

purpose  and  a  continuity  of  knowledge  that  the  other 
case  only  displayed  spasmodically.  You  will  I  think 
know  what  I  mean  by  that. 

(Yes,  can  you  tell  me  the  case?  [21) 

"  Yes,  I  think  so.  ...  [Nothing  said  by  Dr. 
Hyslop  in  the  interval  but  "all  right  "] 

"I  will  do  what  I  can  on  this  side  to  help  on  this 
case  for  I  believe  it  as  important  as  any  M.  P.  ever 
had 

(What  does  M.  P.  mean?) 

"Morton  Prince 

(Good) 

' '  You  see  what  I  am  after. 

(Exactly  what  I  wanted) 

"The  Beauchamp  Case  and  I  am  trying  to  make 
some  clear  headway  out  of  this  one  more  than  I  did 
out  of  that." 


And  later  came  a  pointed  reference  to  "the 
secondary  self  with  all  the  multiple  personal 
equations." 

Another  communicator  attempted  to  give  the 
real  first  name  of  the.  sitter  which  was  a  very  odd 
one,  Brittia.  As  near  as  *  *  Bretia"  was  reached, 
and  then  the  psychic,  while  coming  out  of  the 
trance,  several  times  pronounced  what  phonetL- 
cally  spelled  would  be  "Britta."  And  in  fact 
this  is  the  way  the  name  was  always  pro- 
nounced, the  "i"  in  the  spelling  being  silent. 


208  THE  FUTURE  LIFE 

Also  California  was  named  as  her  home,  and 
the  home  of  her  foster  father  "Dr.  Walter 
Franklin  Prince ' '  given  in  full,  being  gradually 
spelled  out.  Curiously,  when  the  last  name  had 
partly  come  through  it  for  a  moment  took  the 
form  of  "P  r  a  y."  This-  was  meaningless  to 
Dr.  Hyslop,  who  did  not  know  that  "Pray" 
was  the  maiden  name  of  Dr.  Prince's  mother. 
After  Doris  returned  to  her  western  home,  the 
sittings  of  which  she  was  the  central  figure  con- 
tinued, and  one  of  the  factors  of  the  material 
became  attempts  to  state  actual  events  happen- 
ing to  her  three  thousand  miles  away.  These 
statements  proved  correct  in  remarkable  meas- 
ure, as  the  Report  shows  along  with  a  multitude 
of  details  of  evidential  or  psychological  interest. 

NOTES 

1.  The  Doris   Case  of   Multiple  Personality,  by 
Walter  Franklin  Prince,  Ph.D.,  being  vols.  ix-x  of  the 
Proceedings  of  the  American  Society  for  Psychical 
Research.    1419  pages. 

2.  The  Doris  Case  of  Multiple  Personality,   by 
James  H.  Hyslop,  Ph.D.,  being  vol.  xi  of  Proceed- 
ings of  the  American  Society  for  Psychical  Research. 
1024  pages. 

3.  To  some  readers  what  has  been  said  about  the 
multiple  personality  will  seem  more  incredible  than 


EVIDENCE  OF  KESEABCH         209 

spirit  communication,  yet,  we  repeat,  these  are  facts 
scientifically  established  and  unquestioned.  Besides 
the  voluminous  report,  .an  abstract  of  the  case  was 
printed  in  the  American  Journal  of  Abnormal  Psy- 
chology for  June-July,  1916,  and  the  case  has  been 
reviewed  without  dissent  by  some  of  the  leading 
experts. 

4.  As  it  is  awkward  to  keep  repeating  ' '  purported ' ' 
or  "alleged"  the  reader  will  understand  that  by 
"communicator"  we  mean  the  same  thing  as  though 
we  said  "purported  communicator." 

5.  See  Proceedings,  X,  1042-3. 

6.  Yet  it  is  very  possible  that  such  existed.    There 
were  articles  kept  by  "Margaret"  in  her  drawer, 
which  "Real  Doris"  was  not  permitted  to  see  and  did 
not  know  existed,  or  it  may  have  been  simply  for- 
gotten. 

7.  There  were  children  that  Doris  does  not  remem- 
ber because  "Margaret,"  who  has  vanished  and  whose 
memories  were  not  transferred,  always  "came  out"  to 
play  with  them. 

8.  Correct,   in  that  this  case  was  in  the  main 
organized  into  five  concrete  and  coherent  selves,  not 
arising  by  hypnosis  or  undergoing  various  compound- 
ings  in  or  from  that  state. 

9.  Dr.  Hyslop  well  knew  when  he  asked  the  initial 
questions  that  they  would  be  far  more  likely  to  sug- 
gest, on  the  guessing  theory,  one  of  the  numerous 
cases  dissimilar  to  that  of  Doris  with  which  Dr. 
Hodgson's    fame    is    mainly    Identified,    than    Miss 


210  THE  FUTURE  LIFE 

"Beauchamp,"  whose  contact  with  him  has  been  made 
known  only  by  one  or  two  obscure  references  in  Dr. 
Morton  Prince 's  book.  Nor  was  there  anything  which 
could  have  been  inferred  from  the  appearance  of  the 
now  normal  young  woman  sitting  silently  back  of  the 
psychic,  even  had  the  latter  been  awake  and  gazing 
at  her. 

A   NARRATIVE   OF   SPIRIT   RETURN 

The  clergyman  who  had  the  following  experi- 
ences is  one  of  the  leaders  in  his  orthodox  and 
numerous  religious  denomination  in  the  city  of 
New  York.  As  a  young  man  he  was  noted  for 
a  vigorous  intellect,  big  heart,  and  athletic  mas- 
culinity. His  later  honours  and  influence  are 
but  the  fulfilment  of  the  promise  of  his  youth. 

Some  years  ago  the  wife  of  this  clergyman — a 
splendid  character — passed  away.  On  her 
deathbed  her  husband,  whom  we  will  call  Dr. 
V.,  asked  her  if  she  would  try  to  come  back  to 
him.  She  replied,  "I  will,  if  the  Good  Father 
will  let  me. ' ' 

''Eleven  months  had  passed  away,  and  not 
even  a  dream  about  the  one  whom  I  loved  better 
than  my  soul.  She  had  left  me  with  several 
children,  and  at  no  time  during  that  period  was 
there  a  hint  to  me  that  she  was  interested  in 
us  at  all.  I  had  fussed  over  the  thing,  I  had 


EVIDENCE  OF  RESEAECH        211 

prayed  over  it,  and  I  had  wondered  why  noth- 
ing had  come  to  me. 

"  During  our  life  we  had  a  very  extraordinary 
relation.  We  were  exceedingly  sensitive  to  each 
other's  condition,  and  when  she  was  in  diffi- 
culty or  ill  and  away  from  me  I  almost  always 
knew  it.  I  call  it  telepathy  myself. 

'  *  She  died  in  May.  The  following  April  I  was 
in  the  city  of  Philadelphia,  in  the  Bingham 
House.  I  went  to  my  room  about  twelve  o  'clock. 
There  was  a  large  chandelier  with  four  or  five 
lights  in  it  in  the  center  of  the  room  and  a  push- 
button right  at  the  head  of  the  bed.  I  was  lying 
with  my  eyes  closed,  not  asleep, — as  truly  awake 
as  ever  in  my  life.  I  was  thinking  of  her.  It 
didn't  seem  to  come  suddenly,  it  seemed  to  come 
naturally,  the  room  was  filled  with  her  presence. 
I  could  see,  though  my  eyes  were  closed,  her 
form,  shadowy,  with  something  that  looked  like 
the  mist  of  the  morning  about  it,  and  I  said, 
'  Darling,  why  have  you  not  come  before  t ' 

1 '  She  answered,  *  The  Good  Father  would  not 
permit  me. ' 

"I  said,  'I  have  been  so  lonesome  and  so 
heartbroken  that  I  have  hungered  for  you. 
Where  did  you  come  from  ? ' 

41  *  I  have  been  up  to  see  the  children.  (They 
were  up  near  Lake  .)  They  are  lovely.' 


212  THE  FUTURE  LIFE 

She  seemed  to  be  sitting  on  the  edge  of  the  bed. 
The  vision  was  so  real  that  I  reached  up  and 
touched  the  button  and  made  an  attempt  to  put 
my  arms  about  her.  As  the  room  was  flooded 
with  light  I  saw  nothing  and  felt  nothing.  I 
could  have  cried,  'What  have  I  done!  What 
have  I  done!  0  Father,  forgive  me,  let  her 
come  back. '  That  was  my  prayer. 

"I  do  not  know  how  long  I  waited,  praying 
earnestly  and  thinking  intensely,  when  she  was 
in  the  room  again.  I  could  see  the  smile  on  her 
face.  My  eyes  were  still  closed.  I  never  moved 
a  hand  or  opened  my  eyes.  I  just  let  my  soul 
do  the  talking.  I  was  afraid  to  move  and  de- 
stroy it.  I  could  see  her.  I  have  never  lost  the 
vision  at  all.  I  can  recall  it  this  second.  She 
came  in  with  a  gentle  laugh,  and  said,  *  Why  did 
you  do  that!  Don't  you  know  you  can't  see 
me  ? '  I  don 't  know  how  long  we  talked.  I  know 
I  never  slept  a  wink  that  night,  and  we  talked 
of  our  life,  of  our  children,  of  her  father  and 
brother  that  had  passed  on  and  whom  she  said 
she  was  instructing  on  the  other  side.  God 
knows  they  needed  it.  She  said  that  she  was 
instructing  them.  That  has  destroyed  my  belief 
in  hellfire.  I  have  never  preached  hell  since. 
And  I  have  never  feared  death  since.  Death 
to  me  is  only  a  little  change,  that  is  all. 


EVIDENCE  OF  RESEARCH        213 

"That  was  our  conversation,  there  wasn't  a 
silly  thing,  there  wasn't  a  trivial  thing, — 
nothing  hut  what  was  of  interest  to  her  and 
me. 

"Now,  here  is  the  climax.  She  said,  *I  have 
come  to  you  that  you  may  stop  your  grieving, 
for  it  is  making  it  impossible  for  you  to  do  your 
work.  That  must  be  done. '  I  went  back  home, 
took  the  first  train  to  my  children,  gathered 
them  about  me,  and  told  them  that  I  had  seen 
and  talked  with  their  mother  and  that  she  was 
watching  over  us.  That's  had  a  powerful  effect 
upon  my  children. 

1 '  Once  again  she  came  to  me,  but  that  seemed 
more  like  a  half-waking,  half-sleeping  dream, 
just  as  satisfactory  to  me  as  the  other.  But  not 
so  vivid  or  evidential. 

"My  little  girl  of  twelve  did  not  appear  to  me 
for  a  year  after  her  passing,  but  she  came  then 
in  much  the  same  fashion  as  her  mother  on  the 
second  occasion. 

"During  the  first  occasion  I  could  hear  the 
rumble  of  the  noises  on  the  street,  but  in  addi- 
tion I  could  hear  this  voice  in  my  soul, — it  was 
real,  like  a  sounding  board.  I  could  hear  her 
little  laugh  and  her  voice.  She  was  there  to  me 
so  vividly  that  I  felt  that  I  could  touch  that 
button  and  grab  for  her.  There  was  nothing 


214  THE  FUTURE  LIFE 

different  about  my  emotional  state  or  my  need 
for  her  at  that  time." 

Dr.  V.  was  asked  what  he  had  read  or  heard, 
previous  to  the  vision,  about  developed  spirits 
doing  missionary  work  for  less  developed  ones. 
His  answer  was  quick  and  decided.  "  Never 
heard  anything  of  the  kind."  He  was  asked  if 
he  believed  that  such  things  are  done  on  the 
other  side  (this  was  before  he  had  dictated  the 
above  narrative) .  ' '  I  believe  it  because  my  wife 
said  so,"  was  the  energetic  response.  Let  it  be 
noted  that  not  only  did  the  vision  not  come  in 
the  first  paroxysm  of  grief  but  eleven  months 
after  the  death,  but  that  the  fact  announced  as 
to  the  spirit's  occupation  was  contrary  to  Dr. 
V.'s  previous  belief,  and  caused  a  permanent 
doctrinal  alteration  dating  from  that  moment. 
If  the  vision  was  the  work  of  the  "  subliminal, " 
that  was  functioning  in  an  odd  fashion ! 

People  sometimes  ask,  "What  is  the  good  of 
spirit  communication,  even  if  it  is  a  fact?" 
It  appears  to  have  done  good  in  this  instance. 
By  what  he  felt  to  be  as  absolute  a  demonstra- 
tion as  any  of  the  apostles  received  this  reli- 
gious leader  was  able  to  more  than  recover  his 
former  vigour  in  the  business  of  life,  a  powerful 
influence  for  good  was  exerted  upon  his  chil- 
dren, and  henceforth  a  new  and  tremendous 


EVIDENCE  OF  RESEARCH         215 

assurance  pervaded  his  sermons  relating  to  the 
life  which  is  Beyond. 

The  Experience  of  Dying 

The  following  experience  is  related  by  Mr. 
John  Huntley  in  a  communication  to  Mr.  J. 
Arthur  Hill,  who  publishes  it  in  his  book,  Man 
Is  a  Spirit 1: 

"  About  five  years  ago  I  woke  from  sleep  to 
find  'myself  clean  out  of  the  body,  as  the  kernel 
of  a  nut  comes  out  of  its  shell.  I  was  conscious 
in  two  places — in  a  feeble  degree,  in  the  body 
which  was  lying  in  bed  on  its  left  side ;  and  to 
a  far  greater  degree,  away  from  the  body  (far 
away,  it  seemed),  surrounded  by  white  opaque 
light,  and  in  a  state  of  absolute  happiness  and 
security  (a  curious  expression,  but  one  which 
best  conveys  the  feeling). 

"The  whole  of  my  personality  lay  'out 
there,7  even  to  the  replica  of  the  body — which, 
like  the  body,  lay  also  on  its  left  side.  I  was 
not  conscious  of  leaving  the  body,  but  woke 
up  out  of  it.  It  was  not  a  dream,  for  the  con- 
sciousness was  an  enhanced  one,  as  superior 
to  the  ordinary  waking  state  as  that  is  to  the 
dream  state.  Indeed,  I  thought  to  myself, 

'Pp.  71-74. 


216  THE  FUTURE  LIFE 

'This  cannot  be  a  dream/  so  I  willed  'out 
there'  (there  was  no  volition  in  the  body),  and 
as  my  spirit  self  moved  so  the  body  moved  in 
bed. 

"I  did  not  continue  this  movement.  I  was 
far  too  happy  to  risk  shortening  the  experi- 
ence. After  lying  in  this  healing  and  blessed 
light  I  became  conscious  of  what,  for  want  of 
a  better  term,  I  must  call  music;  gentle  and 
sweet  it  was  as  the  tinkling  of  dropping  water 
in  a  rocky  pool,  and  it  seemed  to  be  all  about 
me.  I  saw  no  figure,  nor  wished  to;  the  con- 
tentment was  supreme.  The  effect  of  these 
sounds  was  unutterably  sweet,  and  I  said  to 
myself,  'This  must  be  the  Voice  of  God.'  I 
could  not  endure  the  happiness,  but  lost  con- 
sciousness there,  and  returned  unconscious  to 
the  body,  and  woke  next  morning  as  though 
nothing  had  happened. 

"  I  had  been  passing  through  a  period  of 
mental  and  spiritual  stress  at  the  time,  but  had 
not  been  indulging  in  psychism,  had  never  at- 
tended a  seance  or  similar  phenomenon,  had 
not,  as  I  remember,  been  reading  anything  to 
act  by  way  of  suggestion.  I  am  in  no  doubt 
whatever — so  vivid  was  the  happening — that 
had  the  feeble  thread  between  soul  and  body 
been  severed  'I'  should  have  remained  intact, 


EVIDENCE  OF  RESEARCH        217 

the  grosser  body  being  sloughed  off  for  a  finer 
and  one  fitted  for  a  lighter  and  happier  con- 
sciousness, for  'life  more  abundant,'  in  fact. 

"I  feel,  however,  I  would  like  to  make  it 
known  in  such  times  as  these ;  and,  apart  from 
its  scientific  aspect,  if  it  conveys  any  personal 
comfort  the  trouble  is  repaid  indeed." 

In  a  later  communication,  Mr.  Huntley  states 
his  general  religious  standpoint  thus : 

"I  may  add  that  I  am  not  a  'Spiritualist,'  or 
Theosophist,  or  Occultist  forcer  of  these  con- 
ditions, but  a  member  of  the  Society  of  Friends, 
and  one  of  liberal  views  in  matters  of  religious 
belief." 


CHAPTER  X 

THE  PRACTICAL  VALUE  OF  BELIEF  IN  IMMORTALITY 

GIBBON,  in  his  famous  fifteenth  chapter,  marks 
as  one  of  the  five  causes  of  the  growth  of  Chris- 
tianity, '  '  the  doctrine  of  a  future  life,  improved 
by  every  additional  circumstance  which  could 
give  weight  and  efficacy  to  that  important 
truth ; ' '  and  in  the  true  spirit  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  he  goes  on  to  remark  that  "it  is  no 
wonder  that  so  advantageous  an  offer  (eternal 
happiness)  should  have  been  accepted  by  great 
numbers  of  every  religion,  of  every  rank,  and 
of  every  province  in  the  Roman  Empire."  The 
historian  is  right  when  he  thus  sees  in  Chris- 
tianity the  religion  of  immortality,  though  he 
fails  to  throw  light  on  the  curious  phenomenon 
that  a  truth  which,  on  his  own  admission  had 
been  for  centuries  in  possession  of  the  greater 
portion  of  civilized  men,  had  proved  of  small 
account,  yet  in  the  new  religion  swept  over  the 
Graeco-Roman  world  and  eventually  trans- 
formed it.  Modern  study  of  the  origins  of  our 
faith  has  supplied  this  lack.  We  now  know 
that  the  driving  force  behind  the  Christian 

218 


' 

VALUE  OF  BELIEF  219 

movement  of  the  early  centuries  was  the  belief 
that  the  Founder  of  the  movement  reappeared 
after  death  to  various  witnesses,  some  of  whom 
put  their  experience  on  record;  and  this  belief 
being  based,  not  on  speculation  but  on  an  appeal 
to  facts,  had  power  to  dissolve  the  prevailing 
materialism  and  scepticism  of  the  age.  There 
can  be  no  question  that  the  most  potent  factor 
in  the  reconstruction  of  the  old  world  was  the 
living  conviction  of  immortality  generated  by 
the  post-mortem  appearances  of  One  who  had 
shown  Himself  Lord  of  life  and  fate.  And  it 
may  be  said  that  the  waning  of  belief  in  im- 
mortality which  synchronizes  with  the  revival 
of  science,  may  be  traced  in  great  measure  to  the 
failure  of  belief  in  the  Eesurrection.  Immor- 
tality which  had  been  so  vitally  linked  to  the 
reality  of  the  Resurrection-appearances  must 
suffer  a  severe  blow  when  they  are  explained 
away  as  illusions  of  one  or  two  hallucinated  per- 
sons whose  wild  fancies  spread  as  by  contagion  /J^ 
through  a  vast  multitude.  But  what  I  wish  to  ^//^  , 
emphasize  is  that  whether  by  illusion  or  reality,  ^  ^ 
the  belief  in  the  immortality  of  the  soul  became 
a  great  dynamic  in  the  moral  realm  and  created 
Christian  civilization. 

Let  us  suppose  that  a  like  absolute  conviction 
of  a  future  life  should  seize  the  minds  of  this 


£„  €M**l 6*~+-A*\ 

220  THE  FUTURE  LIFE 

generation  with  the  overwhelming  force  which 
marked  the  early  Christian  civilization,  what 
moral  and  spiritual  consequences  might  be  ex- 
pected to  ensue  ?  We  know  what  took  place  in 
the  first  century.  This  belief,  brought  home  to 
the  mind  by  proofs  deemed  infallible,  acted  as  a 
mighty  spiritual  dynamic  and  turned  common- 
place traders  and  slaves  into  heroes  and 
martyrs.  It  is  true  that  many,  hypnotized,  as 
it  were,  by  the  resplendent  glory  of  the  life  be- 
yond, forgot  the  duties  and  interests  of  the 
world  at  hand ;  but  this  scorn  of  earth  and  time 
arose  not  so  much  from  belief  in  immortality  as 
from  the  deep-rooted  conviction  that  the  end  of 
the  world  was  at  hand,  that  at  any  moment ' '  the 
hammer  on  the  clock  of  time  might  rise  to  strike 
the  last  hour."  Why  trouble  about  a  world 
which  at  any  moment  might  take  end?  Why 
concern  oneself  about  the  conditions  of  industry 
or  the  responsibilities  of  the  home  when  they 
exist  on  such  a  precarious  tenure?  But  this 
"otherworldliness"  has  rarely  except,  perhaps, 
in  the  monastic  period,  been  the  creation  of 
faith  in  a  future  life.  The  evangelicals  and  the 
puritans,  against  whom  the  charge  has  been 
specially  levelled,  were  among  the  most  success- 
ful of  merchants  and  financiers,  and  took  no 
small  part  in  reforming  the  social  abuses  of 


their  time.  But  in  the  light  of  our  modern 
knowledge  and  of  our  present  ethical  advance, 
what  practical  effect  might  a  profound  convic- 
iij  based  not  merely  on  faith  but  on  the  sort 


of  evidence  which  convinced  the  first  Christians, 
be  reasonably  expected  to  have  on  the  thoughts 
and  lives  of  men?  This  question  is  not  of 
merely  academic  interest,  because  today  an 
alleged  principle  or  truth  can  find  entrance  only 
after  passing  the  pragmatic  test.  Granted  that 
death  does  not  end  all  —  what  of  it?  Why  not 
take  one  world  at  a  time?  Why  be  solicitous 
about  a  state  of  being  which  is  still  outside  the 
range  of  our  experience?  The  present  life  with 
its  infinitude  of  interests,  its  pressing  needs,  is 
enough  just  now.  When  we  cross  the  threshold 
of  the  unseen,  we  shall  meet  the  conditions  that 
await  us  there  and  relate  ourselves  to  them  as 
best  we  can.  So  it  is  argued.  But  life  is  not 
a  series  of  disconnected  incidents,  it  is  an 
organic  unity,  and  its  spiritual  temperature  can- 
not but  be  affected  by  its  future  as  well  as  its 
past.  Did  an  assured  conviction  possess  the 
mind  of  its  existence  in  the  realm  beyond  death, 
such  a  conviction  would  cast  back  on  the  present 
order  a  strange  and  wonderful  illumination, 
reversing  our  most  cherished  opinions,  and  ef- 
fecting an  astonishing  transvaluation  of  values. 


« 

*-AV&/V7*»<    £**vy  -  A*^  «v/V 

222  THE  FUTURE  LIFE 

To  begin  with:  such  an  indisputable  assur- 
ance would  justify  the  preference  which  man 
has  entertained  for  ideals,  religious,  moral, 
aesthetic,  as  compared  with  the  life  lived  on  a 
level  with  the  beasts  that  perish.  If  death 
marks  the  limit  of  man's  moral  history,  then  say 
what  we  will,  matter  which  is  indestructible 
proves  its  superiority  to  personality,  which  is 
evanescent.  On  the  other  hand,  if  the  spirit 
lives  on  through  death,  then  it  follows  that 
nature  or  matter  is  subordinate  to  the  interests 
of  the  soul,  and  our  moral  horizon  widens  ac- 
cordingly. Our  ideals  triumph  over  death,  and 
can  now  be  pursued  with  enthusiasm,  and  to 
them  our  most  devoted  and  loving  service  can 
be  rationally  given.  It  is  true  that  we  ought 
to  live  in  the  good,  the  true,  and  the  beautiful, 
whether  we  are  immortal  or  no.  This  "ought" 
expresses  an  ineradicable  instinct,  and  he  who 
yields  to  it  puts  on  beauty  and  nobleness.  "If 
there  be  no  God  and  no  future  state,"  says  F. 
W.  Robertson,  "yet  even  then  it  is  better  to  be 
generous  than  selfish,  better  to  be  chaste  than 
licentious,  better  to  be  true  than  false,  better 
to  be  brave  than  to  be  a  coward.  Thrice- 
blessed  is  he  who — when  all  is  drear  and  cheer- 
less— has  obstinately  clung  to  moral  good." 

And  many  a  heroic  spirit  has  sacrificed  his 


VALUE  OF  BELIEF  223 

physical  being,  in  these  last  years,  at  the  call  of 
duty  though  unable  to  find  solace  or  strength  in 
faith  in  God  and  immortality.  Yet  the  vast 
majority  will  argue  that  since  the  cosmic  order 
has  no  room  for  moral  ideals,  only  a  quixotic 
temper  will  persist  in  cultivating  them  at  the 
sacrifice,  it  may  be,  of  life  itself.  At  all  events, 
it  will  be  admitted  that  a  struggle  in  which  we 
are  foreordained  to  defeat  is  hardly  one  in 
which  any  thrilling  enthusiasm  can  be  evoked. 
Yet  without  this  enthusiasm  the  highest  fruits 
of  the  ethical  life  cannot  be  forthcoming.  In  a 
moral  universe  a  theory  of  annihilation  stands 
condemned,  for  it  does  not  tend  to  an  increase 
of  goodness. 

But  an  equally  important  question  is  raised 
when  the  sociological  effect  of  this  theory  is 
contemplated.  Convince  men  generally  that 
consciousness  ends  in  the  grave,  deprive  them 
of  that  optimism  that  lies  hidden  in  the  heart, 
however  it  may  be  derided  by  the  tongue,  and 
what  right  have  you  to  expect  enterprise,  ad- 
venture, the  courage  of  the  pioneer,  the  forward 
movement  of  the  forces  that  make  for  progress 
and  civilization?  It  was  Kenan  who  said  that 
it  would  be  a  fatal  day  for  any  nation  when  it 
gave  up  belief  in  immortality.  His  shrewd  eye 
saw  that  behind  disbelief  in  a  life  beyond  lay 


224  THE  FUTURE  LIFE 

disbelief  in  the  value  of  personality.  Look  at 
Germany,  where,  among  the  educated  classes, 
faith  in  immortality  has  been  scorned  as  one  of 
the  main  buttresses  of  superstition,  and  where 
dogmatic  materialism  in  the  person  of  Pro- 
fessor Haeckel  still  plants  its  banner.  Is  it  too 
much  to  say  that  the  diminishing  sense  of  the 
worth  of  the  individual  has  led  to  the  glorifi- 
cation of  the  State  which,  in  turn,  casting  aside 
the  trammels  of  morality  and  lifted  into  a 
sphere  where  good  and  evil  cease  to  have  any 
meaning,  provokes  the  stern  antagonism  of  the 
world,  and  calls  down  irremediable  disaster! 

From  another  point  of  view  our  theme  has 
importance  for  the  social  worker  and  the  social 
theorist.  Even  when  we  have  made  allowance 
for  all  the  regenerating  influences  at  work,  no 
thoughtful  mind  can  contemplate  the  multitudes 
foredestined  to  pauperism  and  crime,  victims  of 
the  fatal  pressure  of  circumstance  and  heredity, 
without  a  feeling,  that  cannot  be  denied,  that 
they  have  a  claim  on  the  universe  for  another 
chance,  a  fresh  opportunity  to  win  the  secret  of 
life.  If  the  worker  among  these  children  of  an 
evil  fate  were  convinced  that  our  gaols  and  peni- 
tentiaries were  the  only  environment  many  of 
them  should  ever  know,  such  knowledge  would 
paralyse  his  energies  and  he  must  throw  up  his 


VALUE  OF  BELIEF  225 

enterprise  as  too  small  a  remedy  to  cope  with  BO 
tragic  a  wrong.  (Our  social  order,  as  we  are 
now  beginning  to  learn,  is  largely  responsible 
for  crime  and  poverty.  The  morally  and  so- 
cially unfit  are  our  failures ;  are  they  also  con- 
sidered as  unfit  by  the  cosmic  order!  ) 

The  trial  of  the  war  has  provoked  in  many  a 
heart  anxious  questions  about  the  fate  of  dear 
ones  who  have  been  snatched  away  in  spiritual 
immaturity,  or,  it  may  be,  with  many  sins  to 
deplore,  or 

"about  some  act 
That  has  no  relish  of  salvation  in't." 

Yet  these  have  sealed  their  loyalty  to  a  noble 
cause  with  their  blood.  Now  the  safe  guide  in 
forming  a  sound  ethical  judgment  where  our 
own  personal  inclinations  are  involved,  is  to 
bring  the  problem  into  the  clear  light  of  eternal 
truth.  "  Greater  love  hath  no  man  than  this, 
that  a  man  lay  down  his  life  for  his  friends." 
The  soldier,  however  unworthy  in  other  re- 
spects, who  gives  his  life  for  a  cause  beyond 
himself,  for  an  ideal  end,  however  dimly  de- 
scried, is,  so  far,  in  harmony  with  the  deepest 
laws  of  the  moral  universe.  (In  dying  for  an 
unselfish  purpose,  he  has  made  a  momentous 
beginning  in  the  upward  calling  of  the  spirit, 


226  THE  FUTURE  LIFE 

and  there  are  boundless  possibilities  of  moral 
progress,  if  there  is  a  world  beyond.  That  may 
be  taken  as  one  of  the  most  certain  of  facts ;  and 
the  only  alternative  is  annihilation  for  all  alike ; 
saint  and  sinner  go  down  to  the  same  night  of 
nothingness') 

On  the  other  hand,  if,  as  Emerson  says,  the 
main  enterprise  of  the  world  is  the  upbuilding 
of  personality,  and  if  the  world  guarantees  the 
permanence  of  its  work,  it  follows  that  men  will 
have  the  strongest  reason  and  the  highest  mo- 
tive to  take  up  and  make  their  own  the  purposes 
thus  written  in  the  very  nature  of  things.  If 
the  universe  is  on  the  side  of  the  good,  in  spite 
of  all  our  weaknesses  and  failures  we  can  still 
press  onwards  with  undaunted  spirit.  Death 
ceases  to  paralyse  us.  It  becomes  a  mere  epi- 
sode in  the  development  of  the  spirit,  and  be- 
yond it  we  can  achieve  things  impossible  here, 
because  we  shall  have  transcended  the  barriers 
of  sense,  and  shall  have  entered  on  a  purely 
mental  state  of  being.  All  things  are  possible 
to  us  once  the  sting  of  death,  the  fear  that  in 
dying  we  shall  lapse  into  nothingness,  is  drawn, 
and  the  "great  misgiving"  is  supplanted  by  an 
assured  confidence  in  the  order  of  the  world. 
Such  a  vital  conviction  of  an  after-life  would 
act  as  a  powerful  ethical  stimulus,  urging  men 


VALUE  OF  BELIEF  227 

on  to  finer  issues,  arming  the  will  to  beat  down 
the  enemies  of  the  higher  life,  whether  in  the 
individual  or  in  society.  If  the  true  and  the 
good  are  ultimately  one,  immortality  when  seen 
as  a  real  inspiration  to  action  would  seem  to 
bear  the  stamp  of  a  basic  fact.  From  another 
angle,  the  reflex  bearing  of  the  life  hereafter 
on  the  life  that  now  is  may  be  felt  with  a  weight 
almost  too  great  to  be  borne.  "Whatsoever  a 
man  soweth,  that  shall  he  also  reap."  All 
moralists,  however  much  they  differ  on  other 
matters,  are  agreed  that  sooner  or  later  retribu- 
tion overtakes  sin,  that  a  good  act  tends  to 
create  more  good,  and  the  thought  of  Karma 
which  has  sunk  so  deep  into  the  Oriental  mind 
appears  to  shadow  forth  an  undeniable  truth 
that  "character  is  permanent  and  indestructible 
and  passes  not  from  us,  however  the  fashion  of 
our  outward  life  may  change. ' '  Now,  if  there  is 
an  after-life,  the  same  eternal  laws  must  operate 
there  which  we  find  at  work  here,  else  all  reason- 
ing becomes  an  absurdity,  and  our  moral  his- 
tory a  riddle  without  any  meaning.  Let  men 
generally  be  convinced  that  death  ushers  them 
into  another  world  in  which  they  shall  know 
themselves  as  continuing  a  life  lived  here,  and 
with  a  memory  whereby  to  claim  past  thoughts 
and  deeds  as  their  own,  and  will  not  reason,  con- 


228  THE  FUTURE  LIFE 

science,  prudence,  conspire  to  force  upon  them 
the  seriousness  of  life  and  its  issues,  and  to 
stimulate  all  their  psychic  energies  towards  the 
upbuilding  of  a  character,  the  making  of  a  soul 
set  free  from  the  detaining  bondage  of  mean 
thoughts  and  base  desires?  The  individual 
would  stand  forth  as  the  architect  of  a  life  and 
destiny  greater  than  any  this  world  at  its 
highest  can  bestow.  "I  never  lose  heart," 
writes  a  great  philosophical  idealist  in  the  New 
Testament;  " though  my  outward  man  decays, 
my  inner  man  is  renewed  day  by  day.  For  the 
seen  is  transient,  the  unseen  eternal."  *  It  is 
here,  probably,  that  we  are  to  find  the  secret 
of  so  many  spiritual  tragedies.  Many  enter  on 
the  higher  life  of  self-culture  and  self-disci- 
pline ;  but  as  the  lure  of  material  things  makes 
its  appeal,  and  the  realm  of  finite  interests 
seem  so  real  as  contrasted  with  the  world  of 
ideals — what  a  falling  off  is  there,  what  a  de- 
cline from  beauty  and  grace  to  the  sordidness 
of  an  egotistic  morality !  With  the  fading  away 
of  an  immortal  perspective,  life  seems  so  brief, 
so  precarious,  that  to  sacrifice  pleasure,  ease, 
comfort,  the  joy  of  living  at  the  bidding  of  the 
ideal,  appears  the  veriest  quixotism.  And  so 
the  soul's  high  adventure  ends  in  defeat. 

*II  Corinthians  iv,  17  18  (Moffatt's  translation). 


l/LS'/C  >/  7 


/ 

*  <£-  (l 


! 

VALUE  OF  BELIEF  229 

Why  are  we  here!  Why  have  we  been 
flung  on  this  planet,  to  battle,  to  struggle,  and 
to  die?  Is  it  not  to  develop  our  moral  mus- 
cle, to  make  the  best  of  our  powers,  to  show 
what  stuff  we  are  made  of!  Our  earthly  ex- 
istence, taken  at  its  highest,  is  in  itself 
a  fragment,  a  torso,  a  poor,  and  petty  thing. 
As  Stevenson  says,  (j*  Whatever  else  we  were 
made  for,  it  was  not  for  success.")  Yet,  deep- 
rooted  and  ineradicable  in  the  heart  of  every 
man  is,  however  obscured  at  times,  a  crav- 
ing for  the  fulfilment  of  his  life,  for  its  mean- 
ing to  be  made  clear.  Death  seems  to  be 
the  sheer  denial  of  this  human  demand.  It 
stands  inexorably  on  the  path  of  moral  prog- 
ress: such  is  its  outward  guise.  We  need  the 
inspiration  of  a  great  idea  that  we  may  over- 
come this  abiding  discouragement,  and  play  well 
our  part  in  the  cosmic  conflict  between  right  and 
ill.  "Give  me  a  great  thought,"  said  the  dying 
Herder,  '  '  wherewith  I  may  quicken  myself.  '  '  It 
is  the  "great  thought"  of  immortality  that  has 
power  to  uplift,  unify,  and  strengthen  the  moral 
energies  amid  the  most  poignant  stresses  to 
which  flesh  and  blood  can  be  exposed.  Take  an 
illustration  from  a  private  letter  written  by  a 
young  officer  who  had  been  wounded  in  one  of 
the  bloodiest  battles  of  the  war.  *  '  The  regiment 


230  THE  FUTURE  LIFE 

had  a  terrible  night,  was  only  about  one-third 
the  strength  it  went  in.  Two  of  our  officers 
went  off  their  heads  and  about  two-thirds  were 
killed  or  wounded.  There  is  only  one  thing  that 
can  possibly  make  one  rise  above  these  sur- 
roundings :  faith  that  the  spirit  goes  to  a  higher 
life,  and  though  I'm  afraid  my  religion  has  been 
and  still  is  patchy,  this  thought  kept  me  per- 
fectly calm  and  steady.  Before  the  thing 
started  you  certainly  could  have  knocked  me 
down  with  a  feather.  I'm  afraid  I  shall  be 
frightened,  too,  when  it  has  to  be  done  again; 
but  if  only  I  can  get  into  the  same  frame  of 
mind  as  before,  I  shall  be  quite  contented." 

In  the  broader  battlefield  of  the  world,  where 
we  are  all  called  to  be  soldiers,  the  same  thought 
has  power  to  revivify  the  fainting  spirit,  and 
when  it  infects  the  modern  consciousness  with 
its  triumphant  energy,  it  will  lift  our  personal 
lives  to  fresh  levels  of  efficiency,  strength,  and 
freedom. 

Here,  then,  is  one  of  the  great  tasks  to  which 
the  New  Age  summons  our  finest  and  most  con- 
secrated minds.  It  is  the  reenthronement  of  a 
passionate  faith  in  immortality,  in  the  hearts 
and  lives  of  men.  What  this  faith  did  for  the 
old  Graeco-Eoman  civilization  it  can  do  for  ours. 
It  overthrew  the  very  foundations,  moral,  social, 


VALUE  OF  BELIEF  231 

and  political,  of  that  "hard  Roman  world,"  de- 
stroyed its  materialism,  transformed  its  most 
highly  prized  values,  and  crowned  the  individual 
with  a  glory  which  has  issued  in  the  democratic 
ideals  of  today.  Our  civilization  has  been 
largely  pagan  in  character,  built  on  sensuous 
and  materialistic  ends  and  aims.  The  cry  of 
the  hour  is  for  reconstruction  and  renewal,  but 
as  Lord  Morley  remarks  in  another  connection, 
no  real  or  permanent  betterment  in  the  social 
order  is  possible  apart  from  a  transformation 
of  spiritual  thought.  The  reconstruction  of  so- 
ciety, the  reform  or  abolition  of  time-honoured 
institutions  are  vain  dreams,  if  the  individual 
remains  a  materialist  at  heart,  conceiving  this 
world  as  a  " planetary  cage"  to  be  enjoyed  as 
one  may,  but  with  no  outlook  upon  a  grander 
universe,  no  glimpse  of  a  transcendental  realm 
where  may  be  found  the  fruition  of  all  his 
highest  hopes  and  strivings.  Reinvest  per- 
sonality with  its  native  rights,  place  it  in  a 
category  by  itself  as  an  end  to  which  all  else 
is  a  means,  that  for  which  all  institutions  and 
forms  exist  and  apart  from  which  they  have  no 
reality,  conceive  it  to  be  "a  something  that 
pertains  not  to  this  wild  death-element  of  Time, 
that  triumphs  over  Time,  and  is,  and  will  be, 
when  Time  shall  be  no  more;"  and  you  have 


232  THE  FUTURE  LIFE 

introduced  a  revolutionary  factor  of  potency,  in 
Biblical  phrase,  to  remove  mountains — moun- 
tains of  sloth,  inertia,  prejudice,  and  the  dulness 
of  use  and  wont. 

From  another  but  no  less  important  point 
of  view  belief  in  immortality  has  a  social 
value  which,  perhaps,  will  make  it  more  toler- 
able to  the  mind  of  the  diplomatist  and  politi- 
cal leader.  Today  great  tracts  of  the  world 
are  in  darkest  chaos  and  anarchy.  (As  was 
predicted  long  ago  by  thoughtful  observers, 
the  proletariat  have  taken  up  arms  and  are 
threatening  the  very  existence  of  the  civilization 
for  the  salvation  of  which  the  great  war  has 
been  waged.  /  Men  of  the  depressed  classes  find- 
ing themselves  and  their  fellows  the  victims  of 
age-long  inequality,  suffering,  and  injustice,  not 
infrequently  under  the  aegis  of  law  and  religion, 
are  determined  to  make  a  clean  sweep  of  the 
system  in  which  such  things  are  possible. 
They  boldly  announced  that  after  the  war  of 
nations,  there  must  be  another  and  a  still  more 
terrible  war — the  war  of  classes.  Deep-seated 
in  their  hearts  are  love  and  hate,  love  of  human- 
ity in  the  abstract,  hate  of  human  beings  or 
certain  classes  of  human  beings  in  the  concrete. 
Just  because  of  their  love  of  humanity,  the  Bol- 
sheviki  and  others  at  one  with  them,  though 


VALUE  OF  BELIEF  233 

bearing  a  different  name,  are  guilty  of  murder, 
robbery,  and  many  another  crime,  and  have  let 
loose  the  most  violent  and  brutal  of  man's 
primitive  passions.  Why  this  frightful  contra- 
diction? At  bottom  the  answer  will  be  found  to 
be  that  great  masses  of  the  toilers  have  aban- 
doned belief  in  any  other  world  than  this ;  they 
ask  for  no  Heaven  and  they  fear  no  Hell.  What 
they  demand  and  what  they  must  have  is  a 
share  of  the  good  things  of  the  only  life  they 
know  or  care  about  or  in  which  they  believe. 
Hence  their  cries,  "Down  with  the  State,  with 
the  comfortable  and  well-to-do  classes,  with  the 
intellectuals,  and  up  with  the  unprivileged  and 
the  have-nots  I  Time  is  passing,  death  will  soon 
end  all.  Let  us  destroy,  then,  with  fire  and 
sword  the  existing  order  in  the  hope  that  at 
once  the  poor  and  the  suffering  may  enjoy  the 
good  things  of  the  world. ' '  Such  thoughts  could 
only  be  bred  in  an  atmosphere  saturated  with 
materialism.  Are  we,  then,  to  proclaim  a  tame 
acquiescence  in  the  wrongs  and  injustices  which 
organized  greed  inflicts  on  the  workers,  and  as 
a  substitute  for  good-will  and  social  righteous- 
ness set  up  the  hopes  of  a  good  time  coming  in 
the  world  beyond!  On  the  contrary,  belief  in 
the  infinite  worth  of  the  human  soul,  especially 
when  reinforced  by  the  doctrines  of  the  father- 


/# 


234  THE  FUTURE  LIFE 

hood  of  God  and  the  brotherhood  of  man, 
powerful  as  they  are  to  dissolve  and  to  build 
up  again  the  whole  social  structure,  creates  the 
spiritual  passion  that  can  brook  no  wrong  done 
to  the  humblest  creature  that  wears  a  human 
face.  But  this  passion  is  patient.  It  knows  that 
self-sacrifice  and  self-control  are  essential  to  a 
being  whose  future  is  not  limited  by  the  grave, 
but  whose  destiny  is  made  or  marred  by  the 
thoughts  or  exertions  of  his  earthly  life.  It 
knows  that  there  is  another  and  a  better  world, 
and  that  there  the  only  thing  that  counts  is 
character,  love,  and  goodness,  a  spirit  that  can 
say:  " Better  far  to  suffer  wrong  than  to  in- 
flict wrong  on  any  man."  The  most  urgent 
need  at  the  present  time  in  the  interests  of  the 
spiritual  reconstruction  of  the  world  is  to  re- 
entrench  this  dynamic  faith  in  the  hearts  and 
lives  of  men.  Workers  in  this  mighty  trans- 
formation are  called  from  different  quarters. 
The  philosopher  whose  proud  boast  it  once  was 
that  though  he  could  bake  no  bread  he  could 
give  us  God,  freedom,  and  immortality,  may 
again  bring  his  interest  into  relation  to  ordinary 
human  need  by  showing  the  place  of  a  future 
life  in  any  rational  concept  of  the  universe ;  the 
psychic  researcher  with  his  love  of  truth,  his  re- 
morselessly scientific  attitude,  will  do  well  to  con- 


VALUE  OF  BELIEF  235 

centrate  his  energies  on  establishing  the  fact  of 
survival ;  the  Biblical  scholar  should  make  plain 
the  solid  historical  foundations  of  the  Easter- 
message  on  which  organized  Christianity  was 
founded;  the  ethical  teacher  can  show  that 
moral  experience  stultifies  itself  unless  the  pos- 
tulate of  immortality  be  granted;  the  preacher 
can  vindicate  and  intensify  the  deep  mystical 
craving,  manifest  in  all  the  higher  religions,  of 
union  with  the  Divine,  of  emancipation  from  the 
weakness  and  decay  of  nature  into  the  life  and 
gladness  of  the  sons  of  God.  With  such  con- 
certed and  unified  effort  there  shall  dawn  upon 
our  distracted  world  a  new  day  wherein  at  last 
the  idealism  of  Christ  shall  have  free  course  to 
work  its  beneficent  will,  to  realize  the  dream  of 
seer  and  prophet,  the  spiritualizing  of  all  human 
relations  in  the  veritable  establishment  of 
God's  Kingdom  on  earth. 


INDEX 


Adler,  Felix,  47 

Agnosticism  and  immutabil- 
ity, 26 

American  Psychical  Research 
Society,  36 

American  soldier,  testimony 
of  an,  61 

Annihilation,  moral  conse- 
quences of  theory  of,  223 
sociological  effect  of,  224 

Appearances  of  Christ,  post- 
mortem, 125,  219 

Aristotle,  25,   168 

Armstrong,  Professor,  166 

Augustine,  St.,  38 

B 

Bailey,  "  Festus  "  of,  11 

Balfour,  A.  J.,  30,  146 

Balfour,  G.  W.,  33,  167 

Barnes'  "  Evidences  of  Chris- 
tianity," 149 

Barrett,  Sir  W.  F.,  33,  144, 
146 

"  Beauchamp,"  the,  case  of, 
206,  209,  210 

Bergson,  H.,  146 

Bolsheviki,  unbelief  of  the, 
232,  233 

Bossuet,  89 

Boyd-Carpenter,  Bishop,  33 

Browning,  R.,  46 

Buddha,  40 

Buddhism,  43 

Butcher,  H.  S.,  Prof.,  167 

287 


C 

Carlyle,  Thomas,  133 
Cameron,  Miss,  175 
Character,  significance  of, 9, 10 
"Chenoweth,"  Mrs.,  181,  183 
Clement  of  Alexandria,  64 
Clergyman's     experience,     a, 

210-215 
Clodd,   Edward,   27,   28,   142, 

160 

Coe,  Professor,  92 
Coleridge,  S.  T.,  144 
Conversion,  18 
Crawford,  Professor,  35 
Crookes,  William,  30,  32 
Cross-correspondence,  172, 173, 

176,  177,  178 


Dante,  63 

Darwin,  Charles,  67,  144,  149 

Dead,    the,    employments    of, 

156,  214 
Death,  fear  of,  21,  22 

meaning  of,  62 

sting  of,  226 
Democritus,  66 
Dickinson,  G.  Lowes,  45 
"  Dionysius,  Ear  of,"  167 
Doyle,  Sir  A.  C.,  146 
Dual  personality,  180 
Dying,  experience  of,  215-217 

E 

Eliot,  George,  5,  6 
Emerson,  R.  W.,  22,  49,  94, 
99,  226 


238 


INDEX 


Emotions  an!  immortality,  40 
Kmpedocles,  66 
Eternal  life,  11 
Ether,  37 


Hyslop,  James  H ,  30 

on     the     Sermon     on     tha 

Mount,  101 
confession  of,  148 
and  the  Doris  case,  183 


Fechner,  Gustav,  129,  138 
Fisher,  Doris,  strange  case  of, 

179-210 

Fiske,  John,  75 
Flammarion,    Camille,   30,   35 
Future   life,    influence   of,   on 

the  present,  221 


G 

Gibbon,  218 
Gladstone,  VV.  E.,  32 
Goethe,  7,  49,  80 


H 

Haeckel,  Professor,  27,  28,  73, 

224 

dogmatism  of,  29 
monism  of,  68 
Hall,  G    Stanley,  111,  112 
Harnack,  Professor,  102 
Haynes,  E.  S.  P.,  78 
Heaven,  59 
Herder,  229 
Hill,   J.    A.,   quotation    from, 

215-217 
Hodgson,    Richard,    155,    163, 

164,  206,  207 
Holland,  Mrs.,  172 
Holt,  Henry,   157 
Homer,  131 
Hugo,  Victor,  22 
Huntley,  John,  experience  of, 

215-217 
Huxley,  T.  H.,  8,  24,  25 


Ideals,  moral,  83,  222 

Immortality,  meaning  of  the 

term,  1,  2 
racial,  5,  6,  7 
and  the  Churches,  14 
conventional  ideas  of,  17 
belief   in   and   spiritual  re- 
newal, 19,  20 
difficulties  of  belief  in,  20 
desire  for,  Chap.  Ill    (pas- 
sim ) 

belief  in  and  suicide,  42 
and  religion,  58 
and  morality,  86 
and  the  affections,  91 
and  philosophy,  136,  234 
as     a     spiritual     dynamic, 

220 

and  the  war,  225 
and  civilization,  231,  234 


James,    William,    30,    31,    33, 

69,  74,  146,  163 
Jefferson,  C.  E.,  39 
Jesus  Christ: 

teaching      of,      Chap.      VI 

( passim ) 

the  Resurrection  of,  mean- 
ing of,  122 
influence  of,  132,  133 
contribution  of,  to  belief  in 

immortality,  138 
John,  St.,  11,  12 
Johnson,  Samuel,  61 
Jowett,  Benjamin,  107 


INDEX 


239 


Kant,  Immanuel,  8,  83,  150 

Karma,  227 

Kingdom  of  God,  Christ's  idea 

of,  102,  103 
Kingsley,  Charles,  24 
Kropotkin,  Prince,  97 


Lang,  Andrew,  33 

Leuba,  Prof.  J.  H.,  41,  69,  70, 

71 

Lisle,  Leconte  de,  41 
Lodge,  Sir  Oliver  J.,  144 
on  the  nature  of  the  soul,  4 
personal  confession  of,  16 
advocate    of    psychic    re- 
search, 30,  32 
cross-correspondence    test 

of,  172 

Love,  not  transferable,  92 
Lucretius,  66 

M 

MacDougall,  W.,  161 
Man,  the  greatness  of,  82 
ideal-forming  power  of,  87 
higher  than  nature,  88 
citizen  of  an  eternal  world, 

88 
Materialism,  66 

ambiguity  of  the  term,  71 
argument  of,  151 
Martin,  A.  W.,  67,  127 
Martineau,  James,  112 
Marx,  Karl,  79 
McCabe,  Joseph,  28 
McGiffert,  A.  C.,  18 
Mediums,  33,  36,   142 
Metchnikoff.  E.,  27,  28 
Miracle,  meaning  of,  38 
Morley,  Viscount,  231 
Multiple  personality,  180 


Mtinsterberg,  Hugo,  141 
Myers,  F.  W.  H.,  30,  32,  129, 
148,  159,  164 

N 

Narrative    of    spirit    return, 

210-213 
Notes  on  the  Doris  Case,  208, 

209 


Officer,  letter  of,  quoted,  229, 

230 
Origen,   64 

P 

Pascal,  23 

Paul,  St.,  17,  90,  123,  133,  173, 
174,  228 

"  Pelham,  George,"  155,  157 

Personality,  63,  226,  231 

Pessimism,  40 

Peter,  St.,  112 

Phenomena,  physical,  of  spir- 
itism, 34 

Philoxenus,  169 

Piper,  Mrs.,  155,  163,  166,  172 

Plato,  49,  64,  107,  131 

Prince,  Morton,  206,  210 

Prince,  W.  P.,  181,  182 

Pringle-Pattison,  Professor, 
76,  96 

Pulpit,  the  modern,  weakness 
of,  114 

Psychical  Research  Society, 
32,  140 

Purgatory,  64 

R 

Rashdall,  Hastings,  143 
Reconstruction,  spiritual,  234 
Resurrection  of  Christ,  Chap. 
VII  (passim) 


240 


INDEX 


Rich  Man  and  Lazarus,  Para- 
ble of  the,  111 
Richet,  Charles,  30 
Robertson,  F.  W.,  222 
Royce,  Josiah,  6,  7 
Ruskin,  John,  17,  32 

8 

Sadducees,    the,    Christ    and, 

104 

Schleiermacher,  43,  44 
Schrenck-Notzing,  von,  35 
Sensationalism,  72 
Service,  Rev.  R.,  166 
Shakespeare,  42 
Shaw,  G.  Bernard,  41,  44,  45 
Sidgwick,  Henry,  30,  53 
Sidgwick,  Mrs.  Henry,  161 
Socialism,  influence  of,  78 
Soul,  definitions  of,  2,  3,  4 
Spiritistic  hypothesis,  advan- 
tages of,  162,  163 
weakness  of,  163,  164 
Stevenson,  R.  L.,  229 
Stirling,  J.  H.,  96 
Streeter,  B.  H.,  60 
Swedenborg,  150 


Taylor,  Prof.  A.  E.,  141 


Telepathy,  159,  160,  161,  162 
Tennant,  F.  R.,  68 
Tennyson,  Lord,  46,  86 
Theologia  Germanica,  122 
Theology     and     psychic     re- 
search, 142,  143 
Thompson,  Francis,  10 
Triviality  of  alleged  messages 
from  the  dead,  153,  154, 
164,  165 
Tyndall,  John,  66 


"  V,"  Dr.,  210 
Values,  moral,  75 
Verrall,  Miss,  172,  173 
Verrall,  Mrs.  A.  E.,  172 
Verrall,  Prof.  A.  E.,  167 
Virgil,  131 

W 

War,  the  Great,  and  immor- 
tality, 7,  13,  14,  89,  225 
Ward,  James,  64,  76 
Watson,  William,  9,  51 
Wells,  H.  G.,  41,  45,  51 
Willett,  Mrs.,   168 
Woman,    a    mysterious,    the 
mystical  saying  of,  115 


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